Gulf Coast League
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The Gulf Coast League is a minor league baseball league which operates in Florida. It is a Rookie League, with a season running from mid-June to late August. The league is divided into three divisions, East, North and South.
GCL teams generally play at the minor league spring training complexes of their parent major league clubs, and are uniformly owned by those parent clubs. Their games are usually played in the afternoon, for very few (if any) spectators. GCL games are perhaps the least competitive of all minor league games, as most of the players were just drafted in that year's entry draft (2-3 weeks before the season's start) and are there to develop skills under their employer's tutelage rather than (necessarily) to win games or entertain fans.
GCL teams are not referred to by their home city, but simply by their parent club's name, and the prefix "GCL" or "Gulf Coast" if necessary to differentiate between them and another club sharing the nickname. Some of these teams share stadiums with their club's High-A affiliate in the Florida State League, which can lead to confusion, as FSL teams do use the city name (e.g. the Lakeland Tigers, three levels up from the GCL Tigers).
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