United Shore Professional Baseball League
The United Shore Professional Baseball League was founded by Rochester-based General Sports and Entertainment, and is the culmination of a 10-year effort by General Sports to bring professional baseball to the Detroit area. General Sports is led by President & CEO Andy Appleby, a former Senior Vice President of the Detroit Pistons and Palace Sports and Entertainment. General Sports previously owned and operated the Fort Wayne Wizards, a Minor League Baseball team in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and the Derby County Football Club, an English football (soccer) club in the English Premier and Championship Football Leagues. The USPBL will give General Sports the opportunity to employ every best practice that its experienced team has learned over the past 30 years at the highest level of sports management and marketing.
The USPBL launched May 2016 with an initial slate of three teams playing a full 75-game schedule at Jimmy John’s Field in downtown Utica. The USPBL is the first league in history to feature best practices such as having all of its games played on prime dates, Thursday to Sunday from Memorial Day through Labor Day – the very finest months of weather in Michigan.
The teams are comprised of top-level college baseball players from around the country. Based on our experience with our professional soccer team in England, where developmental academies are prevalent, the players in our league will be participating in the very first finishing school for baseball players. The school consists of state of the art coaching, the very best in musculoskeletal training and strength and conditioning programs, the latest advances in sabermetrics and video analysis, as well as a focus on personal development by offering job/internship opportunities with local companies and agreements with local colleges for continuing education courses.
The quality of the players and the baseball is very high, and the league is scouted regularly by major league teams.
