Lynn Sailors

The Minor League Baseball franchise now known as the Akron RubberDucks originated in 1980 as the Lynn Sailors, based in Lynn, Massachusetts. The Sailors were affiliated with the Seattle Mariners from 1980 to 1982 and with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1983, when they were known as the Lynn Pirates. They were a member of the Eastern League in class Double-A and played at Fraser Field. After the 1983 season, the franchise was moved to Burlington, Vermont, and became the Vermont Reds. It was moved again in 1989 to Canton, Ohio, and since 1997 has been based in Akron, Ohio.

The Lynn Tigers of the New England League, the city's last professional baseball franchise, folded in the middle of the 1949 season.

After more than 30 years without a professional team, Lynn returned to minor league baseball in 1980, when the owners of the West Haven Yankees moved the franchise to Boston's North Shore. The Seattle Mariners, founded as an expansion team in 1977, were slowly building out their farm system, and did not field a Double-A affiliate before 1980. During the 1979–80 offseason, the New York Yankees moved their Double-A affiliation to the Nashville Sounds of the Southern League, and the Mariners replaced them as sponsors of the relocated West Haven franchise, the Lynn Sailors. (Complicating matters further, the Oakland Athletics placed an expansion Eastern League team in West Haven called the Whitecaps and the Glens Falls White Sox also entered the EL in 1980.)