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Pawtucket Red Sox

The Pawtucket Red Sox, known colloquially as the PawSox, were a professional minor league baseball club based in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. From 1973 to 2020, the team was a member of the International League and served as the Triple-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. They played their home games at McCoy Stadium, and won four league championships, their last in 2014. Following the 2020 season, the franchise moved to Worcester, Massachusetts, to become the Worcester Red Sox.

The Pawtucket Red Sox were born as a Double-A Eastern League franchise in 1970. Three years later, Boston's Triple-A affiliate in the International League replaced the Eastern League PawSox. After enduring three different owners, at least two threats to move the team elsewhere, and bankruptcy, the PawSox were purchased from the International League by local industrialist Ben Mondor in January 1977. Over the next 38 years, Mondor (who died in 2010) and his heirs stabilized the franchise and turned it into a success; it was twice (1990 and 2003) selected the winner of Baseball America's Bob Freitas Award as the top Triple-A operation in minor league baseball, won the 1990 John H. Johnson President's Award, led its league in total attendance three times between 2004 and 2008, and captured three Governors' Cups as playoff champions.

On February 23, 2015, the team was sold to a group headed by then-Boston Red Sox president and chief executive officer Larry Lucchino and Rhode Island attorney James J. Skeffington. Thwarted in two attempts to replace McCoy Stadium with a new facility (first in adjacent Providence, then in a downtown site in Pawtucket), the club announced on August 17, 2018, that it would move to Worcester, located 42 miles (68 km) to the northwest at the opposite end of the Blackstone Valley, in 2021.

On June 30, 2020, it was announced that the 2020 Minor League Baseball season was cancelled, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Thus, the team last played minor league games in Pawtucket during the 2019 season.

The first team to be dubbed the Pawtucket Red Sox debuted at McCoy Stadium in 1970 as a member of the Double-A Eastern League. The franchise, owned by former Major League shortstop Joe Buzas, had spent the previous five seasons (1965–69) as the Pittsfield Red Sox after playing in four different Pennsylvania cities—Allentown, Johnstown, York and Reading—over seven years (1958–64).

After three seasons, Pawtucket's Eastern League franchise moved to Bristol, Connecticut, in 1973 to make room for the Triple-A PawSox, the former Louisville Colonels of the International League.

Carlton Fisk, the future Baseball Hall of Fame catcher, played for the Eastern League PawSox in 1970. Shortstop Rick Burleson and first baseman Cecil Cooper are among the players who toiled for both the Double-A and Triple-A versions of the team. This first edition of the PawSox franchise played for ten seasons as the Bristol Red Sox and then spent 33 seasons (1983–2015) in New Britain, Connecticut, the last 21 of them as the Rock Cats. In 2016, the Rock Cats moved to Connecticut's capital city, and were rechristened the Hartford Yard Goats.

The Cleveland Indians had also placed an Eastern League club in Pawtucket, in 1966–67. The Pawtucket Indians moved to Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1968. The Pawtucket Slaters, a Boston Braves farm club in the Class B New England League, represented the city from 1946 to 1949, when the NEL disbanded.

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Minor League Baseball Class AAA franchise in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, USA
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