New minor league baseball team coming to Pearl and Trustmark Park. See details

Sunday's final regular season home game for the Mississippi Braves will not mean an end to professional baseball in Central Mississippi.

In a surprise announcement issued between a doubleheader played between the Braves and the Tennessee Smokies Saturday night, Pearl Mayor Jake Windham announced a new team affiliated with the Frontier League will begin playing at Trustmark Park in 2025.

The new team will be part of a 17-team Frontier League. No name has been released for the new baseball team, which will not be affiliated with a major league squad.

"We have fought long and hard for baseball here. The Braves have been a part of our community for 20 years and we wish the well," Windham said.

The new owner was introduced as Joe Engis also, who is also the owner of the Gary Southshore RailCats baseball team based in Gary, Indiana.

According to a biography at the RailCats website, Eng is an experienced technology executive and currently a member of the executive team at Billtrust, a business and finance software developer, where he is responsible for product and technology for the business. He has a passion for sports and baseball that goes back to childhood.

"Mississippi has great baseball culture," Eng said to a crowd of around 4,000 fans. "And we are so excited to bring the Frontier League to Trustmark Park."

The commissioner of the Frontier League is Steve Tahsler. The league began in 1993.

The name of the new team has not yet been chosen and fans will be able to vote for the team's name by going to www.ondeck2025.com . Voting will take place between Sept. 9 through Sept. 27 with the new name expected to be announced in early October.

Future of baseball at Trustmark Park: Mississippi Braves close regular season Sunday. So what is next for Trustmark Park in Pearl?

After 20 years, the Double-A Mississippi Braves, which are owned by Diamond Baseball Holdings, are moving to Columbus, Georgia and the Braves' lease at 8,480-seat Trustmark Park is up at the end of this season, which comes to a close Sept. 15.

The Braves are scheduled to play their final regular season home game on Sunday afternoon, but could still host a playoff game.

More details on the new team will be released Monday.

The Frontier League is one of the seven independent baseball leagues across North America, and is one of the four leagues considered as an MLB Partner League. The league is headquartered in Sauget, Illinois.

The league is currently contested by 16 teams including three in Canada, who are evenly divided into two divisions. The Mississippi team will be the league's 17th team with a yet-unannounced 18th team planned for 2025.

After playing a regular season of matches against intra- and inter-division opponents, the best three teams in each conference face off in a postseason tournament that determines the champion.

Teams in the Frontier League must recruit and sign their own players, who usually are undrafted college players or one-time prospects who have been released by their teams.

Frontier League rules limit teams to three veterans (players older than 29 years), while a minimum of 10 of the 24-man roster are required to be rookies.

Typically, teams play a 96-game regular season from May to September.

Trend of minor league baseball

The trend in minor league baseball in recent years has been for the Major League franchises affiliated with the teams to move the minor league teams closer to the main office. Moving the Mississippi Braves to Columbus gets the Double-A franchise closer to Atlanta. While that is not always the case, it is happening more and more often.

It has been the story of minor league baseball in the metro area. The former Jackson Mets, which played in Smith-Wills Stadium on Lakeland Drive were moved in 1990 to Binghamton, New York to be closer to the parent club. Jackson was able to recruit a Houston Astros affiliate for the 1991 season, where it stayed until the end of the 2000 season, when the Astros moved the team to Texas to be closer to the parent club.

Smith-Wills Stadium will play host to the new Legacy League next summer. The new collegiate summer league will have several celebrity owners, including Dusty Baker, Brian Jordan, Andruw Jones and former NBA star Tracy McGrady .

The Braves have played in Pearl and Trustmark Park since 2005.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: New minor league baseball team coming to Pearl and Trustmark Park. See details