List of International League champions
In 2022, the league championship was determined by a single playoff game between the East and West division winners.
[1] The Rochester Red Wings have won 19 International League championships, more than any other team, followed by the Columbus Clippers (11) and the Baltimore Orioles, original Buffalo Bisons, and Toronto Maple Leafs (10).
Among active IL franchises, Rochester has won 19 championships, the most of all teams, followed by Columbus (11) and the Durham Bulls and Syracuse Mets (8).
With few exceptions, champions from 1884 to 1932 were simply the regular-season pennant winners—the team with the best win–loss record at the conclusion of the regular championship season.
[11] Frank Shaughnessy, general manager of the International League's Montreal Royals, was interested in developing a way for multiple clubs to share in the excitement of postseason play.
His new playoff format, devised to maintain the interest of fans and players alike during the Great Depression, provided an opportunity for four teams to compete for the league's championship.
In 1933, he introduced his plan to league president Charles H. Knappe, and the result was the Governors' Cup playoffs.
The original trophy, designed by the supervisor of the league's umpires and silversmith W. B. Carpenter, was created out of solid silver.
[12] In 1988, IL president Harold Cooper donated the trophy to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, where it is on permanent display.
The first Governors' Cup was won in 1933 by the original Buffalo Bisons, who defeated the Rochester Red Wings, 4–2.
After the dissolution of the Triple-A Alliance following the 1991 season, the International League maintained this divisional alignment but returned to having a semifinal round wherein the top two teams in each division played each other to qualify for the Governors' Cup finals.
[5] In place of the International League, MLB created the Triple-A East, a circuit divided into three divisions, Northeast, Midwest, and Southeast.
[29] Beginning in 2023, the regular-season was split into two halves, and the winners of each half meet in a best-of-three series for the league championship.
