Edenton Colonials

Lore & Background

The Edenton Colonials began minor league play in 1951 as members of the six-team Class D Virginia League. They finished the regular season in third place with a 63–55 record under manager Gashouse Parker, 16.5 games behind the first-place Colonial Heights-Petersburg Generals. In the playoffs, they were defeated 4 games to 3 by eventual champion Elizabeth City. The Virginia League folded after the 1951 season.

In 1952, the Colonials became members of the eight-team Class D Coastal Plain League. On July 21, 1952, the local Chowan Herald reported the team had lost 3 of their previous 5 games and were in third place with a 47–42 record. They had just played a 0–0 tie with Wilson after a rainout, and previously defeated Rocky Mount 2–0 behind the pitching of 'Monk' Raines.

Reader's Guide

The Edenton Colonials represent a brief but notable chapter in minor league baseball history, existing for only two seasons (1951–1952) yet capturing a league championship in their final year. Their significance lies in being part of the final seasons of both the Virginia League and the Coastal Plain League, both of which folded after the Colonials' involvement. The team's home field, Hicks Field, constructed in 1939 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995, remains in use today for collegiate summer baseball, preserving the site's baseball heritage. The Colonials' 1952 championship, led by pitcher John Raines' 26 wins, highlights the team's competitive peak. Their legacy is also tied to the community of Edenton, which has not hosted another minor league team, making the Colonials a unique historical footnote. The team's managers—Gashouse Parker, Vernon Mustian, and Tom Inge—guided the squad through its two-year existence. The Colonials' story illustrates the transient nature of Class D baseball in the mid-20th century and the enduring value of local ballparks.

Did You Know?

• The Edenton Colonials played only two seasons, 1951 and 1952, winning the 1952 Coastal Plain League championship.
• Pitcher John Raines led the Coastal Plain League with 26 wins in 1952.

The Traveling Father Who Built a League

In the early 1990s, sports executive Pete Bock found himself making long, recurring trips to Virginia just to watch his son Jeff play in the Valley Baseball League. The distance and time commitment gnawed at him, and he began imagining a collegiate summer baseball circuit that would sit much closer to his own backyard. That personal frustration became the seed for an entirely new organization. Bock channeled his experience in the sports business into planning a wood-bat league built around college players recruited from across the United States. The result launched for the 1997 season with a modest six-team roster. Bock also chose a name with local roots, honoring the Class D-level Coastal Plain League that had operated in the region between 1937 and 1952, linking the new venture to nearly half a century of earlier summer baseball tradition in the area.

From Six Teams to Fifteen: A Four-State Footprint

What began as a small six-team circuit in 1997 has steadily grown into a fifteen-team league spanning four states. Over the decades, franchises have been added across North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia, giving the league a broad Southeastern identity. The most recent expansion came in 2024 with the arrival of the Greenville Yard Gnomes, pushing the total to its current fifteen clubs. This growth reflects both the league's appeal to college players seeking competitive wood-bat experience and its ability to find new communities willing to host summer baseball. The geographic spread also means that a single season can feature matchups drawn from very different regional cultures, from the coastal plains of the Carolinas to the Piedmont of Virginia and the river cities of Georgia, all under the same wood-bat, college-player format that has defined the league since its founding.

The Edenton Steamers and a Churning Roster

The Edenton Steamers occupied a place in the league from 1998 through 2019 before departing to play in a different circuit, marking more than two decades of local summer baseball in that coastal North Carolina town. Their story is one thread in a much larger tapestry of team turnover. Over the years, the league has seen franchises relocate, rebrand, or simply vanish. The Durham Braves became the Durham Americans; the Spartanburg Stingers moved to Forest City and became the Owls; the New Bern River Rats shifted to Morehead City and were later renamed the Marlins. The Savannah Bananas left in 2022 to focus on their professional exhibition operation, and the Wilson Tobs, a fixture since 1997, are set to relocate to Smithfield for 2027. This constant reshuffling has kept the league's competitive landscape in perpetual motion.

New Ownership and a Historic Catcher

Two developments in the early 2020s marked a turning point for the league. In 2022, Capitol Broadcasting Company acquired the organization, bringing a major media and sports ownership group behind the operation and signaling a new chapter in its governance. Then, on May 24, 2025, Alexia Jorge stepped onto the field as a catcher for the Holly Springs Salamanders and became the first woman ever to play in the league, a milestone that stretched the CPL's identity beyond its traditional all-male college-player format. The league's postseason structure, known as the Petitt Cup, uses overall record for playoff seeding rather than strict divisional titles, a format that has carried over from a pre-Petitt Cup era. Together, the ownership change and Jorge's appearance underscore a league in transition, balancing its long-standing wood-bat college tradition with an openness to new participants and new leadership.

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