Charlotte Knights
- Location: Charlotte, NC
- League: Southern League 1988-1992; International League 1993-2019; Triple-A East 2021; International League 2022-
- Affiliation: Baltimore Orioles 1988; Chicago Cubs 1989-1992; Cleveland Indians 1993-1994; Florida Marlins 1995-1998; Chicago White Sox 1999-2019, 2021-
- Ballpark: Knights Stadium 1990-2013; Truist Field 2014-present
Team History[edit]
The Charlotte Knights, of the International League and briefly in Triple-A East, returned professional baseball to uptown Charlotte, NC, from a South Carolina suburb in 2014. The Chicago White Sox farmhands play their home games at Truist Field in Charlotte, NC.
The club joined the ChiSox' farm system in 1999 as they implemented their "Southeast strategy" by locating all of their farm clubs in the Carolinas or Alabama.
Historically, Charlotte baseball teams played as Hornets - because, during the American Revolution, British General Cornwallis called the city "a veritable hornet's nest of rebellion" - until the 1976 Southern League club took its parent Orioles brand. In that vacuum, George Shinn's 1985 NBA expansion team nabbed Hornets. In 1988, Shinn bought the O's and redubbed them Knights.
After losing its ballpark to arson, the team played in two temporary stadiums until Shinn got a deal to build a permanent one, Knights Stadium, just across the South Carolina line in Fort Mill. The Gastonia Rangers could have blocked that - so Shinn bought them, then sold them after completing the move.
The 1993 Triple-A expansion team drew a then-market record 429,132 - but never matched that as attendance sank into the IL cellar.
The Knights play Copa de la Diversión Hispanic engagement campaign games as Caballeros de Charlotte (Caballeros translates as Cavaliers or Gentlemen, according to the team playing on "Knights" as "gentlemanly horsemen").
Year-by-Year Record[edit]
Related Sites[edit]
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