No independent baseball league in North America can match the amount of talent that has passed through the ranks of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball.

Arguably the highest-quality indy ball league that exists today, the ALPB — a 10-team league with teams mainly based in the mid-Atlantic and southeastern regions of the United States — has been chugging along since 1998, putting up consistently strong attendance numbers and play.

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The ALPB’s 2024 126-game season, divided into two halves with each half-winner in the North and South Divisions earning a postseason spot, gets going April 25. The schedule’s midpoint is July 5, of which the second half will then commence and go on until September 15. 

Charleston Dirty Birds

West Virginia’s representative and the oldest continually-playing team in the ALPB, the Dirty Birds were founded as a club in 1987 and adopted their current nickname (referencing the canary in a coal mine) with their move to their current league in 2021, having previously been a minor-league affiliate of the Seattle Mariners in the South Atlantic League prior to the MLB’s reorganization of the minors in 2020. GoMart Ballpark in The Mountain State’s capital city is home, and a fan vote decided the digital mascot’s name (Dusty) in 2022. 

Charleston missed out on last season’s ALPB playoffs, though did improve steadily as the season went along, finishing third in the South Division’s second-half standings after finishing last in the first half. 

Gastonia Baseball Club

Unrelated to the former Gastonia Honey Hunters (whose ALPB membership was terminated by the league after last season due to unpaid debts), Gastonia Baseball Club is the new club under fresh ownership ready to go through its inaugural season of play this season at CaroMont Health Park, a sleek venue in Gastonia, North Carolina that was only recently opened in 2021. 

The club is currently amid a “Name Your Team” competition in which fans can submit team name ideas, after that more features about the team’s identity (such as a potential future mascot) will be revealed. Gastonia will play in the ALPB’s South Division.

Hagerstown Flying Boxcars

This season’s other debuting ALPB team, the Flying Boxcars are eager to get started following a journey to play nearly three years in the making after the club’s creation was announced in September 2021. 

Slated to have their home games at the brand-new Meritus Park in Hagerstown, Maryland in the state’s panhandle, the Flying Boxcars get their name from the city’s history of producing Fairchild C-119 cargo planes (also known as Flying Boxcars), while the team’s mascot, Stryker, is depicted as a fictional man with ties to the town and the airplane. Hagerstown will play in the ALPB’s North Division.

High Point Rockers

The loss of the Bridgeport (Connecticut) Bluefish from the ALPB after the 2017 season was High Point, North Carolina’s gain as the city was approved to form a new club to be the Bluefish’s replacement in 2018, with the Rockers (named after the city’s history as a major furniture manufacturer) debuting a year later. 

Truist Point, opened in 2019, is the team’s home ballpark, and HYPE, a rocking horse, is the team’s mascot. High Point was the ALPB regular season’s best team last season, winning both halves in the South Division standings, but was eliminated in the league playoffs by the Gastonia Honey Hunters.

Lancaster Stormers

The team may have gone through a minor name change this offseason (shortening the Barnstormers nickname to just Stormers), but the two-time defending ALPB champions are hoping their success on the diamond won’t change with it this season. 

Founded in 2003 and beginning play in the ALPB in 2005 — the same year that the club began play at Clipper Magazine Stadium in Lancaster, Pennsylvania — the Stormers are a four-time league champion (2006, 2014, 2022 and 2023) all while having Cylo the cow as a mascot, which hasn’t changed with the team’s rebrand. Lancaster had an incredible midseason turnaround in order to go back-to-back last season, going from a 25-38 record in the North Division’s first half to winning the second half at 37-24 before later toppling Gastonia in the Championship Series for the gold.

Lexington Legends

The Legends are back to their original name (since 2001) this season after spending 2023 as the Lexington Counter Clocks, and they’re marking their return with new ownership and a new mascot in Mighty Lex, a baseball with arms, legs, and a mustache. 

Formerly a member of the South Atlantic League before joining the ALPB in 2021 after losing minor-league affiliation, the Legends won the ALPB in their inaugural season and brought some hardware back to the Bluegrass in Lexington, Kentucky, where they play their home games at Legends Field. The Counter Clocks era last season saw the team struggle, going 31-32 in the first-half South Division campaign before finishing last in the second-half standings with an 18-43 mark.

Long Island Ducks

No team has a longer stint in the ALPB than the Ducks, who joined the league in 2000 (two years after the ALPB was founded) and have stuck around through plenty of changes ever since, winning four league titles (2004, 2012, 2013, 2019) along the way. 

Central Islip, New York on Long Island is home to the Ducks’ home ground of Fairfield Properties Ballpark, and games there frequently feature QuackerJack, the team’s mascot. The North Division’s first-half winner a year ago, the Ducks made the ALPB playoffs but were swept by eventual champion Lancaster in the Division Championship Series.

Southern Maryland Blue Crabs

Named for the official crustacean of the state of Maryland, the Blue Crabs have been shuffling along since joining the ALPB as an expansion team for their first season in 2008, capturing three league championships (2009, 2012, 2013) in their time in the league. 

Pinch is the team’s mascot — he even has an artificial pond for his use at Regency Furniture Stadium known as “Crabby Cove” — but Waldorf, Maryland’s professional baseball team wasn’t quite able to break out of the water and become a contender last season, finishing third in both halves of the North Division standings before its move to the South Division for the 2024 campaign.

Staten Island FerryHawks

The spot for arguably the most picturesque home ballpark in the ALPB with SIUH Community Park, which has Manhattan’s skyline visible across New York Harbor, the FerryHawks began play in the ALPB in 2022 as an expansion team, but they haven’t been able to string up much success yet as they’re yet to win at least 50 games in a season. 

The two-part nickname of the club refers to the Staten Island Ferry and the red-tailed and Cooper’s hawks native to the island, and Frankie the FerryHawk takes plenty of inspiration from both as the team’s mascot. 

York Revolution

Revolution is part of York, Pennsylvania’s fabric, with the city playing major roles in both the American Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, and the Revolution baseball team is firing away and trying to keep spirit and history going. The Revs are three-time ALPB winners (2010, 2011, 2017) since their inaugural season in 2007, and team mascot DownTown (a bluebird) helps fans cheer on the home team at WellSpan Park, where the 30-foot “Arch Nemesis” wall in left field — formerly the largest outfield wall in all of professional baseball — notably looms large. 

York just barely missed out on the playoffs last season, finishing in second place in both the first- and second-half North Division standings and losing the open wild card spot to Gastonia.

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When Is The 2024 MLB Draft?

The 2024 MLB Draft is part of MLB All-Star week and will be in Arlington, Texas, where the World Series champion Texas Rangers are hosting the All-Star Game. 

The All-Star Game is July 16. The official date of the draft has yet to be announced, but the 2023 MLB Draft began the Sunday before the All-Star Game, which was played on Tuesday.  

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