Baseball in the United States the Atlanta Braves' affiliates except the Carolina Mudcats. Minor League teams that are owned directly by the major league Club do not have PDCs with each other and are not part of the reaffiliation shuffles that occur every other year. A special minor league is the Arizona Fall League. It operates outside the Minor League Baseball hierarchy and is owned by MLB as a whole; teams generally assign prospects from the AAA and AA classes to the league's six teams. Today, 19 affiliated minor baseball leagues operate with 246 member clubs in large, medium, and small towns, as well as
Professional baseball in Japan Unable to compete against the more established JBL, the Kokumin League disbanded a few games into the 1947 fall season. The Japanese Baseball League disbanded in 1949, reorganizing itself in 1950 as Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). (It is called , which simply is a translation of "professional baseball".) The Central League included the established teams, and the Pacific League was made up of new teams and players. The Pacific League uses the designated hitter style of play. The pro baseball season is eight months long with games beginning in April. Teams play 144 games (as compared to the 162 games