The Frontier League was founded in 1993 by a group of Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky baseball-loving business people who hoped to start a commuter league for their area. The Frontier League is not part of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, which was founded just after 1900 to regulate contract disputes between teams. No team has a working or affiliation agreement with a major league team, a system expanded by Branch Rickey, general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1930's and '40s. Frontier League players are 27 years of age or less, and each team must include 11 rookies on its roster of 21.
Most players are college or graduate students, late starters, and guys looking for a second chance.
The level of play approximates that of an A or AA league. Zanesville won the 1993 Frontier League Championship, while Erie, whose league membership was a bridge between New York-Penn League franchises during stadium construction, won the 1994 playoffs. Playoff teams were Chillicothe and Johnstown in the east, and Springfield and Richmond in the west. Mal Fichman, Caps manager, was skipper of the 1995 Johnstown champs, and coached Erie in 1994. He was back for 1997, but pitching coach Wayne Rosenthal signed with a major league organization, along with at least three Caps players.