Major League

Major League may also refer to:

Sport

Major League Lacrosse

Major League Lacrosse (MLL) is a men's field lacrosse league consisting of nine teams in the United States. Founded in 1999, the league's inaugural season was in 2001. MLL averaged 4,384 spectators per game during the 2015 season.

MLL is a semi-professional league. MLL players reportedly earn annual salaries in the $10,000–$25,000 range; players and staff generally hold other jobs.

History

Founding (2001–2006)

The MLL was founded by Jake Steinfeld, Dave Morrow and Tim Robertson in 1998, and began regular season play in June 2001. Steinfeld is well known for creating the Body By Jake line of exercise equipment and videos. Morrow is a former All-American lacrosse player and the president of Warrior Sports.

The league was originally divided into the American Division—Boston, Bridgeport (moved to Philadelphia in 2004) and Long Island—and the National Division—Baltimore (moved to Washington after the 2006 season and to Annapolis after the 2008 season), New Jersey, and Rochester—from 2001 until 2005. The MLL played a 14-game regular season its first two years; in 2003, the schedule was cut to 12 games. The league's playoff format has the top teams in each division advancing to the New Balance MLL Championship Weekend, with two wild card playoff spots going to the teams with the best remaining records regardless of division.

MLL

MLL may refer to:

Lacrosse

Lacrosse is a contact team sport played between two teams using a small rubber ball (62.8–64.77 mm (2.472–2.550 in), 140–147 g (4.9–5.2 oz)) and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick. It is often considered as a rough sport. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose mesh designed to catch and hold the lacrosse ball. Offensively, the objective of the game is to score by shooting the ball into an opponent's goal past the goalie, using the lacrosse stick to catch, cradle, and pass the ball to do so. Defensively, the objective is to keep the other team from scoring and to gain the ball through the use of stick checking and body contact or positioning. The sport has four major types: men's field lacrosse, women's lacrosse, box lacrosse and intercrosse. The sport consists of four positions: midfield, attack, defense and goalie. In field lacrosse, attackmen are solely offensive players (except on the "ride", when the opposition tries to bring the ball upfield and attackmen must stop them), defensemen or defenders are solely defensive players (except when bringing up the ball, which is called a "clear"), the goalie is the last line of defense, directly defending the goal, and midfielders or "middies" can go anywhere on the field and play offense and defense, although in higher levels of lacrosse there are specialized offensive and defensive middies. Long stick middies only play defense and come off on the field on offense

New York Lizards

The New York Lizards, originally the Long Island Lizards, are a Major League Lacrosse (MLL) team based in Hempstead, New York, located on Long Island. They are original members of the MLL and lost in the league's inaugural game on June 7, 2001 to the Baltimore Bayhawks (now Chesapeake Bayhawks), 16–13. From the league's inception in 2001 through 2005, they were in the American Division. From 2006 to 2008, they were in the Eastern Conference.

History

In the MLL's inaugural season in 2001, the Long Island Lizards split their home games between Hofstra Stadium, now James M. Shuart Stadium, and EAB Park (now Bethpage Ballpark). For the 2002 season, they used Hofstra Stadium as their home field. As of 2003, the Lizards played all home contests at Mitchel Athletic Complex, in Uniondale, New York until 2008. The team will return to James M. Shuart Stadium for their home games in 2009. The Lizards have won American Division championships in 2001, 2002, and 2003, and Major League Lacrosse titles in 2001, 2003 and 2015. The team made the playoffs in 2005 as a wildcard despite a losing record. The team's name and logo are based on the Italian wall lizard, a small reptile that was imported to Long Island (which has no native lizards) in the 1960s and which populate areas of the team's hometown of Hempstead in Nassau County.