Lynn Sailors

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.

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.)

After the season, the Mariners left Lynn and signed a player development contract with the Chattanooga Lookouts, also a Southern League franchise.

[3] Professional baseball did not return to Lynn until 1996 when the Massachusetts Mad Dogs of the independent Northeast League began play at Fraser Field.