Sophomore League
American Minor League Baseball league (1958–1961)
The Sophomore League was a Class D level minor league baseball league that operated from 1958 through 1961. League franchises were located in New Mexico and Texas. The league evolved from the Southwestern League, which played in 1956 and 1957. The name change was part of a systemic change. The circuit went from being one with almost no ties to major league baseball to a league where every team was a minor league affiliate of a major league team.
History
The Sophomore League formed in 1958 as a six–team league, evolving from the Southwestern League. The Class D level Sophomore League began play on April 28, 1958, with the Artesia Giants (San Francisco Giants affiliate), Carlsbad Potashers (Chicago Cubs), Hobbs Cardinals (St. Louis Cardinals), Midland Braves (Milwaukee Braves), Plainview Athletics (Kansas City Athletics and San Angelo Pirates (Pittsburgh Pirates) as charter members.
The Midland Braves won the Sophomore League championship in 1958, managed in part by Baseball Hall of Fame member Travis Jackson.
The Sophomore League expanded to eight teams in 1959, adding the Alpine Cowboys (Boston Red Sox affiliate) and Odessa Dodgers (Los Angeles Dodgers).
The public source identifies “Sophomore League” as american Minor League Baseball league (1958–1961). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Sophomore, League and American.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7563120. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1958, 1961, 1956 and 1957.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sophomore League” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.