# Frontier League

The Frontier League (FL; French: Ligue Frontière, LF) is a professional baseball league in North America composed of 18 teams, 15 in the United States and 3 in Canada. The FL is one of the eight independent baseball leagues in North America and is considered the oldest currently running independent baseball league in the world. The Frontier Cup, the independent baseball trophy in North America, is awarded annually to the league playoff champion at the end of each season. The league is an official MLB Partner League since 2020, and the level of play is comparable to Minor League Baseball's Single-A level. The FL is headquartered in Sauget, Illinois.
The Frontier League was organized by several men who got together in the winter of 1992–1993 and decided to start an independent professional baseball league to serve the West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and southeast Ohio areas. They believed they could bring professional baseball to areas that would never have a chance of affiliated professional baseball coming to their communities. The seed was planted and they named their project The Frontier League.
25 distinct franchises had competed in the league. Its largest period of growth followed in 2020–21, when six teams from the ceased Can-Am and New York–Penn leagues joined alongside an expansion franchise. The Evansville Otters, the only one of the original eight franchises still playing today, is the longest tenured team in the league.
The FL is the fifth-highest grossing professional minor sports league in the United States by revenue, after the American Hockey League (AHL), International League (IL), the Pacific Coast League (PCL) and the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball (ALPB). The league's headquarters have been in Sauget, Illinois since 2001, when the Gateway Grizzlies were formed. As of the 2024 season, the FL had players from 17 different countries.
The FL's regular season is typically held from May to September, with each team playing 96 games. Following the conclusion of the regular season, 8 teams advance to the Frontier League playoffs, a three-round tournament that runs into late-September to determine the league champion. Since the league's founding in 1993, the Schaumburg Boomers have won the most combined FL titles with four, and the reigning league champions are the Québec Capitales, who defeated the Washington Wild Things in the 2024 Frontier League Championship Series.

## History

The Frontier League was founded in 1993. It initially struggled to retain franchises, with four of its eight founding teams folding within three seasons, though steadily grew to twelve teams within a decade. The first league champions were the Zanesville Greys. Eight teams have won more than one championship: Springfield in 1996 and 1998; Johnstown in 1995 (as the Steal) and in 2000 (as the Johnnies), Richmond Roosters in 2001 and 2002, Windy City in 2007 and 2008, the Joliet Slammers in 2011 and 2018, and the Evansville Otters in 2006 and 2016. With four titles, the Schaumburg Boomers have won the most league championships.
On June 20, 2000, Brian Tollberg debuted with the San Diego Padres, becoming the first player from the Frontier League to make it to the Majors. A week later, Morgan Burkhart made his debut with the Boston Red Sox.
Although the league does not have any teams located in the same city as Major League teams, it does nonetheless have teams located within the markets of Major League teams. The Chicago area has three teams (Joliet Slammers, Schaumburg Boomers and Windy City ThunderBolts), as does the New York area (New Jersey Jackals, Sussex County Miners, and New York Boulders), and St. Louis (Gateway Grizzlies), Cleveland (Lake Erie Crushers), Cincinnati (Florence Y'alls) and Pittsburgh (Washington Wild Things) each have one. The Wild Things, in particular, have been able to market themselves as a successful alternative to the Pittsburgh Pirates due to the latter franchise's long stretch of losing seasons, which lasted from the Frontier League's founding in 1993 until 2013 when the Pirates finished with a record of 94–68.
On October 16, 2019, it was announced that the Frontier League would be merging with the Canadian American Association of Professional Baseball, absorbing five of its teams to form the largest independent professional baseball league. This added the New Jersey Jackals, New York Boulders, Quebec Capitales, Sussex County Miners, and Trois-Rivieres Aigles to the league; the Ottawa Champions, the last remaining Can-Am League team, was not invited to participate. The divisions were renamed, with the easternmost teams playing in the Can-Am Division and the westernmost in the Midwestern Division. The league had a partnership agreement with the California Winter League for player development.
On September 24, 2020, Major League Baseball announced that it named the Frontier League an MLB Partner League. This enables collaboration with MLB to jointly discuss marketing and promotional initiatives to grow, expand, and enhance the game of baseball.
For the 2021 season, the Frontier League announced it would be adding two new teams. The first announcement came around the same time as the announcement of the partnership with Major League Baseball, as Ottawa was granted an expansion franchise in the league. The team, as chosen by fans in a contest, was named the Titans and started playing at Ottawa Stadium. Then, on January 8, 2021, after the reorganization of Minor League Baseball, the league added the Tri-City ValleyCats, which were one of several teams that were orphaned or disbanded when the New York-Penn League was folded. The Titans and ValleyCats joined the five former Can-Am League teams and Washington in the Can-Am Conference; to even the divisions at three to four teams, Lake Erie was moved to the Midwest Conference.
In April 2021, the league announced that the Québec Capitales, the Trois-Rivières Aigles, and the Ottawa Titans would not compete in the 2021 season due to the prolonged closure of the Canada–United States border as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Titans, Aigles and Capitales later joined forces to form a new team that competed as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Can-Am Conference. Known as Équipe Québec, they began the season as a traveling team, and starting on July 30, 2021, started sharing home games between Québec City and Trois-Rivières following a loosening in border restrictions. 10 games were played in Québec City and 11 in Trois-Rivières. They did not play in Ottawa due to COVID-19 restrictions in Ontario.
On October 6, 2021, the owners of the Southern Illinois Miners, Jayne and John Simmons, announced they would be retiring from professional baseball to spend more time with family and the Miners would be ceasing operations and dropping out of the Frontier League. As a result, the league formed the Empire State Greys, to compete as a traveling team with a roster of players from the Empire Professional Baseball League.
In September 2023, the league announced a new team, the New England Knockouts, who were planned to play at Campanelli Stadium in Brockton, Massachusetts, beginning with the 2024 season. This brought the total number of permanent members of the league to sixteen teams. After playing one season as the Knockouts, the team was renamed as the Brockton Rox in January 2025.
In September 2024, the league announced an expansion to Mississippi and North Carolina. A franchise was awarded to Pearl, Mississippi, called the Mississippi Mud Monsters, following the departure of the Atlanta Braves Double-A affiliate the Mississippi Braves. The Down East Bird Dawgs, a new team in Kinston, North Carolina, will play in Grainger Stadium, which was formerly home of the Texas Rangers-affiliated Down East Wood Ducks.

## Season structure

The Frontier League season is divided into a preseason (late April and early May), a regular season (from early May through early September) and a postseason (the Frontier League playoffs).
Teams usually hold a spring showcase for prospects in April and participate in prospect tournaments, full games that do not feature any veterans, in late April. Full training camps begin in early May, including a preseason consisting of four exhibition games. Split squad games, in which parts of a team's regular season roster play separate games on the same day, are occasionally played during the preseason.
During the regular season, clubs play each other in a predefined schedule. Since 2021, in the regular season, all teams play 96 games: 48 games each of home and road, playing four series (12 games) against their three other divisional opponents; three series (9 games) against the four remaining non-divisional intra-conference opponents; and one series (3 games) against every team in the other conference.
The league's regular season standings are based on a win system. At the end of the regular season, the team that finishes with the most wins in each division is crowned the division champion, and the league's overall leader is awarded the league's regular season champions.
The Frontier League playoffs, which go from early-to-late September, are an elimination tournament where two teams play against each other to win a series in order to advance to the next round. The final remaining team is crowned the Frontier League champion. Four teams from each conference qualify for the playoffs: the top two teams in each division. The two conference champions proceed to the Frontier League Championship Series (FLCS). In all rounds, the higher-ranked team is awarded home-field advantage, with up to four of the seven games played at this team's home venue. In the FLCS, the team with the most wins during the regular season has home-field advantage.

## Players

Teams in the Frontier League must recruit and sign their own players, who usually are undrafted college players or one-time prospects who have been released by their teams. The Frontier League limit teams to eight veterans (players who complete a season at 30 years old or older), while a minimum of ten of the 24-man roster are required to be rookies (players who complete a season at 24 years old or younger).
Pay in the Frontier League is minimal. For the 2024 season, each team had a salary cap of $895,000 and the player salaries had a minimum of $26,200. For rookie players, only half of their salaries counts against the cap. Due to the low pay, players typically live with host families and receive meal money during the season.

## Teams

During the 2021 season, the FL consisted of 14 teams, 13 based in the United States and 1 in Canada. The FL divided the 14 teams into two conferences: the Can-Am Conference and the Midwest Conference. Each conference was split into two divisions: the Can-Am Conference contained six teams (three per division), while the Midwest Conference had eight teams (four per division). With the addition of the Empire State Greys from the 2022 to the 2023 season, as well as the New England Knockouts for the 2024 season, the league operated at 16 teams with only two divisions: East and West (eight per division).
The expansion of the two new teams starting at the 2025 season marks the league's first expansion into the deep south, and largest expansion in history. The league will revert to the 2021 setup: two conferences with four divisions. The Mississippi Mud Monsters will be playing in the West Division of the Midwest Conference while the Down East Bird Dawgs will be playing in the East Division of the Atlantic Conference.
* East Division
* North Division
* Central Division
* West Division

### List of teams

Overview of FL teams :
| Conference | Division | Team | City | Stadium | Capacity | Founded | Joined | General manager | Manager |
| Atlantic | East | Down East Bird Dawgs | Kinston, North Carolina | Grainger Stadium | 4,100 | 2024 | 2024 | Shari Massengill | Brett Wellman |
| Atlantic | East | New Jersey Jackals | Paterson, New Jersey | Hinchliffe Stadium | 10,000 | 1998 | 2020 | John Hunt | Albert Gonzalez |
| Atlantic | East | New York Boulders | Pomona, New York | Clover Stadium | 9,362 | 2011 | 2020 | Shawn Reilly | T.J. Stanton |
| Atlantic | East | Sussex County Miners | Augusta, New Jersey | Skylands Stadium | 5,500 | 2015 | 2020 | Vincent Sangemino | Chris Widger |
| Atlantic | North | Brockton Rox | Brockton, Massachusetts | Campanelli Stadium | 4,750 | 2024 | 2024 | Jerod Edmondson | Jerod Edmondson |
| Atlantic | North | Ottawa Titans | Ottawa, Ontario | Ottawa Stadium | 10,332 | 2020 | 2020 | Martin Boyce | Bobby Brown |
| Atlantic | North | Québec Capitales | Quebec City, Quebec | Stade Canac | 4,297 | 1999 | 2020 | Daniel Sylvain | Patrick Scalabrini |
| Atlantic | North | Tri-City ValleyCats | Albany, New York | Joseph L. Bruno Stadium | 6,500 | 2002 | 2021 | Matt Callahan | Greg Tagert |
| Atlantic | North | Trois-Rivières Aigles | Trois-Rivières, Quebec | Stade Quillorama | 4,000 | 2013 | 2020 | Simon Laliberté | Jonathan Albaladejo |
| Midwest | Central | Evansville Otters | Evansville, Indiana | Bosse Field | 5,181 | 1995 | 1995 | Travis Painter | Andy McCauley |
| Midwest | Central | Florence Y'alls | Florence, Kentucky | Thomas More Stadium | 4,500 | 2003 | 2003 | Max Johnson | Chad Rhoades |
| Midwest | Central | Lake Erie Crushers | Avon, Ohio | Crushers Stadium | 5,000 | 2009 | 2009 | Brian Wentzel | Jared Lemieux |
| Midwest | Central | Washington Wild Things | Washington, Pennsylvania | Wild Things Park | 5,200 | 2002 | 2002 | Steve Zavacky | Tom Vaeth |
| Midwest | West | Gateway Grizzlies | Sauget, Illinois | Grizzlies Ballpark | 6,000 | 2001 | 2001 | Kurt Ringkamp | Steve Brook |
| Midwest | West | Joliet Slammers | Joliet, Illinois | Duly Health and Care Field | 6,016 | 2011 | 2011 | Dayana Rodriguez | Mike Pinto |
| Midwest | West | Mississippi Mud Monsters | Pearl, Mississippi | Trustmark Park | 6,500 | 2024 | 2024 | Andrew Seymour | Jay Pecci |
| Midwest | West | Schaumburg Boomers | Schaumburg, Illinois | Wintrust Field | 7,365 | 2012 | 2012 | Michael Larson | Jamie Bennett |
| Midwest | West | Windy City ThunderBolts | Crestwood, Illinois | Ozinga Field | 4,200 | 1995 | 1999 | Mike VerSchave | Bobby Jenks |

### Former teams

* Canton Coyotes (2002, became the Mid-Missouri Mavericks)
* Canton Crocodiles (1997–2002, became the Washington Wild Things)
* Chillicothe Paints (1993–2008, joined the Prospect League)
* Dubois County Dragons (2000–2002, became the Kenosha Mammoths)
* Empire State Greys (2022–2023, Temporary travel team)
* Équipe Québec (2021, Temporary travel team consisting of Canadian players from Ottawa, Québec and Trois-Rivières operated due to COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions)
* Erie Sailors (1994, became the Johnstown Steal)
* Florence Freedom (2003–2019, became the Florence Y'alls)
* Johnstown Johnnies (1998–2002, became the Florence Freedom)
* Johnstown Steal (1995–1998, became the Johnstown Johnnies)
* Kalamazoo Kings (2001–2010, folded)
* Kalamazoo Kodiaks (1996–1998, became the London Werewolves)
* Kenosha Mammoths (2003, became the Springfield-Ozark Ducks)
* Kentucky Rifles (1993–1994, folded)
* Lancaster Scouts (1993–1994, became the Evansville Otters)
* London Rippers (2012, folded)
* London Werewolves (1999–2001, became the Canton Coyotes)
* Mid-Missouri Mavericks (2003–2005, folded)
* Midwest Sliders (2008–2009, became the Oakland County Cruisers)
* Normal CornBelters (2010–2018, joined the Prospect League)
* Newark Buffaloes (1994–1995, became the Kalamazoo Kodiaks)
* Oakland County Cruisers (2010–2011, became the London Rippers)
* Ohio Valley Redcoats (1993–1998, became the Dubois County Dragons; returned 2005, folded)
* Portsmouth Explorers (1993–1995, became the Springfield Capitals)
* Richmond Roosters (1995–2005, became the Traverse City Beach Bums)
* River City Rascals (1999–2019, folded)
* Rockford Aviators (2013–2015, folded)
* Rockford RiverHawks (2002–2009, moved to Northern League; returned 2011–2012, replaced by Rockford Aviators)
* Slippery Rock Sliders (2007, became the Midwest Sliders)
* Southern Illinois Miners (2007–2021, folded)
* Springfield Capitals (1996–2001, became the Rockford Riverhawks)
* Springfield-Ozark Ducks (2004, became the Ohio Valley Redcoats)
* Traverse City Beach Bums (2006–2018, folded)
* Tri-State Tomahawks (1993, folded)
* West Virginia Coal Sox (1993, folded)
* Zanesville Greys (1993–1996, became the River City Rascals)

### Timeline
## Champions

* 1993 Zanesville Greys
* 1994 Erie Sailors
* 1995 Johnstown Steal
* 1996 Springfield Capitals
* 1997 Canton Crocodiles
* 1998 Springfield Capitals
* 1999 London Werewolves
* 2000 Johnstown Johnnies
* 2001 Richmond Roosters
* 2002 Richmond Roosters
* 2003 Gateway Grizzlies
* 2004 Rockford Riverhawks
* 2005 Kalamazoo Kings
* 2006 Evansville Otters
* 2007 Windy City ThunderBolts
* 2008 Windy City ThunderBolts
* 2009 Lake Erie Crushers
* 2010 River City Rascals
* 2011 Joliet Slammers
* 2012 Southern Illinois Miners
* 2013 Schaumburg Boomers
* 2014 Schaumburg Boomers
* 2015 Traverse City Beach Bums
* 2016 Evansville Otters
* 2017 Schaumburg Boomers
* 2018 Joliet Slammers
* 2019 River City Rascals
* 2020 Season cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic
* 2021 Schaumburg Boomers
* 2022 Québec Capitales
* 2023 Québec Capitales
* 2024 Québec Capitales

## Records
### Individual career records
#### Batting

| Statistic | Record | Player |
| Games Played | 588 | Chris Sidick |
| At Bats | 2,225 | Chris Sidick |
| Runs | 434 | Chris Sidick |
| Hits | 725 | Santiago Chirino |
| Home Runs | 127 | Charlie Lisk |
| Runs Batted In | 442 | Charlie Lisk |

#### Pitching

| Statistic | Record | Player |
| Games | 255 | Nick Kennedy |
| Games started | 98 | Aaron Ledbetter |
| Innings Pitched | 671.2 | Aaron Ledbetter |
| Wins | 51 | Aaron Ledbetter |
| Strikeouts | 522 | Aaron Ledbetter |
| Complete Games | 18 | Aaron Ledbetter |
| Saves | 74 | Zach Strecker |

## Broadcasting

On February 24, 2022, the Frontier League announced that all games for the 2022 season would be available through the streaming platform FloSports.