Bakersfield and Adelanto lose their California League baseball teams. They’re moving to the Carolina League

In 1954, the Brooklyn Dodgers signed a kid from Van Nuys High School. His name was Don Drysdale. In the first professional stop of what would become a Hall of Fame career, the Dodgers sent him to their minor league team in Bakersfield.

The California League has included a team in Bakersfield since 1941, but this year is the last. The Bakersfield and High Desert affiliations will be terminated, and the clubs will move to the Carolina League, Minor League Baseball announced Monday.

The Dodgers sent such stars as Drysdale, Pedro Martinez and Mike Piazza to Bakersfield during three affiliations that lasted a total of 21 years. But, as major league teams increasingly demanded modern ballparks in order to sign affiliation deals, the California League expanded to cities such as Rancho Cucamonga and Lake Elsinore.

In Bakersfield’s Sam Lynn Ballpark, built in 1941, the batter faces the setting sun, so the start of night games must be delayed. Numerous plans for a new ballpark came and went over the decades, without any coming to fruition.

Bakersfield was one of eight founding members of the California League in 1941. The others: Anaheim, Fresno, Merced, Riverside, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino and Stockton. When the 2017 season opens, San Bernardino will be the only one with a California League team.

“Baseball has had a long and wonderful history in Bakersfield,” team owner D.G. Elmore said in a statement. “I am sorry to see it come to a close.”

The other franchise contracted Monday, the High Desert Mavericks, was a hit upon its founding in 1991 but floundered as the population centers in the area moved away from Adelanto, where the team played. The Adelanto City Council this year said the Mavericks were a financial drain on the city and tried to evict the team from its ballpark.

“It is with great regret and reluctance that the Mavericks are one of two teams being contracted from the California League, as the Mavericks would prefer to remain in Adelanto as members of the California League,” High Desert owner Dave Heller said in a statement.

“The uncertainty of the future, stemming directly from the City of Adelanto’s effort to lock us out of a ballpark for which we have a binding legal contract, creates too much uncertainty for next season and beyond.”