Independent teams in Grand Prairie, Amarillo to combine

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas (AP) – Two minor league baseball teams in Texas will operate as one club and split their schedules for the 2016 season.

The Grand Prairie AirHogs and the Amarillo Thunderheads will play a combined schedule, with half of the home games played in each respective city.

The combination was announced Thursday by the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball.

Commissioner Miles Wolff said the original schedule became difficult with 13 clubs and no interleague play. Wolff said the owner of the Amarillo and the Grand Prairie teams, Southern Independent Baseball, agreed to the league’s request to combine the clubs for next season.

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Wolff said organizers fully expect that both teams will return in 2017 as individual entities, with a full schedule in each market.