Gulf Coast League

Gulf Coast League

Gulf Coast League logo
Sport	Baseball
Founded	1964
No. of teams	17
Country	USA
Most recent champion(s)	Gulf Coast League Cardinals (1st title)
Most titles	Gulf Coast League Yankees (11 titles)
Official website	Official website

The Gulf Coast League is a Minor League Baseball league that operates in Florida. It is a rookie league, and together with the Arizona League it forms the lowest rung on the minor-league ladder.

GCL teams play at the minor league spring training complexes of their parent Major League Baseball clubs and are owned by those parent clubs. Admission is not charged and no concessions are operated at the teams' games. The players assigned to this level are first-year players who are drafted in the MLB entry draft a few weeks prior to the start of the GCL season, and emphasis is therefore placed on skill development, rather than competitive play.

Prior to the formation of this league, three separate leagues used the Gulf Coast League name, a 1907–1908 Class D league, a 1926 class D league and a 1950–1953 Class C League. All three leagues operated around the Gulf coasts of Texas and Louisiana.

Complex-based baseball leagues, which played before sparse crowds and often scheduled morning games to avoid the summer heat and afternoon thunderstorms, were adopted after the drastic shrinking of minor league baseball during the 1950s and 1960s. MLB teams needed an entry level to professional baseball for 18- and 19-year-old players graduating from high schools or signed from Latin America. They are typically considered the lowest rung on the minor league ladder, a notch below other Rookie-level leagues such as the Appalachian or the Pioneer circuits.

The league was founded in 1964 as the Sarasota Rookie League with four teams playing in Sarasota. It was originally intended to be the Gulf Coast division of a statewide rookie league, with the eastern division based in Cocoa. However, the eastern and western teams never played each other. The SRL's four teams consisted of squads sponsored by the Chicago White Sox, Milwaukee Braves, New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals. The SRL Braves, managed by Paul Snyder, future Atlanta farm system director, won the championship with a 36–23 record.