Auburn’s short-season single-A baseball club has been known as the Doubledays since 1996, during which time they were an affiliate of the Houston Astros. The club remained under Houston’s umbrella through the 2000 season, and was absorbed by the Toronto Blue Jays from 2001 to 2010. In September 2010, the team announced an affiliation with the Washington Nationals beginning in 2011. The move gives the Nationals farm teams in Auburn and nearby Syracuse. A member of the New York-Penn League since 1958, the club has been through several incarnations and affiliations: Auburn Yankees (1958-1961), Mets (1962-1966), Twins (1967-1971), Phillies (1972-1977), Sunsets (1978), Red Stars (1979), Americans (1980) and Astros (1982-1995). The Sunsets, Red Stars and Americans were run as co-op clubs, with players sent from teams across both the American and National Leagues.
The Doubledays are six-time division champs of the three-division New York-Penn League, and won league titles in 1998 and 2007.
The team is named after Abner Doubleday, a Union general in the American Civil War, and the town’s most famous son. Doubleday is notable for firing the first shot of the war, as well as legend that he invented the game of baseball in nearby Cooperstown, NY. Though a 1905 National League committee declared Doubleday invented the game in 1839, Doubleday himself is to have never considered himself the game’s creator. Thus, there’s still plenty of speculation about the game’s origins.
Notable alumni
Rick Dempsey
Luis Gonzalez
Aaron Hill
Adam Lind
Kenny Lofton
Tug McGraw
Johan Santana
Mel Stottlemyre
Roy Oswalt
Billy Wagner