For 26 seasons, the High Desert Mavericks were a constant in a rapidly evolving region of Southern California.

Much of the Victor Valley portion of the Mojave Desert went from scrub and ranches to affordable housing tracts during the Mavericks’ tenure in the town of Adelanto, best known for a federal prison … and the professional baseball team that played in the California League.

The Mavs played their final game tonight, and they saved some of their best for last, defeating the Visalia Rawhide 7-4 to sweep the final series, allowing the franchise to finish as it started, back in 1991 — as California League champions.

This matters to me because my newspaper covered that team, and one of my favorite colleagues, the late Jim Long, covered many of their games, until his death in 2009.

The High Desert franchise was one of the most pleasant surprises in minor-league baseball history, one the league president, in the late 1980s, insisted would never happen.

In 1985, the Cal League had not played a game south of Ventura in more than 40 years. In 1986, Palm Springs got a team, and in 1987 San Bernardino joined the league with an unaffiliated team.

All of a sudden, the “high” Class-A league realized that just because a town in the south of the state got the Dodgers or Angels or Padres on their local TV, it didn’t mean they wouldn’t support a minor-league ball team far closer to their front door.

Adelanto was a perfect place for a Cal League team. Well, almost.

It had the kind of demographics that often do well supporting minor-league baseball — blue collar or lower middle class. Family oriented. Happy to go to the local ballpark and see a game between teams of big-league prospects, usually paying less to go through the turnstiles than they would for a movie ticket.

Adelanto built a stadium — I want to say for $5 million, a huge bargain even then — ahead of the arrival of the Padres-affiliated franchise for Year 1.

The club was a huge success in part because it was one of the first entertainment options in the rapidly developing part of California usually seen from the windows of cars speeding to or from for Las Vegas on Interstate 15.

The club broke the league attendance mark in its first year, with something like 200,000 paid admissions, and a team managed by Bruce Bochy, recently a major-league catcher and, in his future, a three-time World Series-winning manager with the San Francisco Giants.

The Adelanto stadium was interesting because it was built at altitude, nearly 3,000 feet, and often was windy … and the ball carried well there. Very well. Twenty home runs playing for the Mavericks would have been about 12 with any other California League team, most of them much closer to sea level.

The first Mavericks team had several really good minor-league players who had solid major-league careers. The outfielder Matt Mieske. The pitcher Scott Sanders. The outfielder Paul Faries.

Mostly, it was just about giving local customers a game to see 69 or 70 times a year, from April into August. One that didn’t involve the hassle of driving “down the hill” to greater Los Angeles. It was a point of pride for its community.

Somewhat remarkably, the club never went through a re-branding. They were the Mavericks when they began and right through to their end. Most teams change their names every few years, for marketing purposes. San Bernardino’s team has been the Spirit … the Stampede … and the 66ers.

The Mavericks logo was a cowboy hat, red on black, and it had legs and certainly would have been recognized in their home market, where the major-league affiliates often changed (eight MLB teams in those 26 seasons), but the name never did.

How did it all end?

It apparently started in the central California city of Bakersfield, which has struggled to put fans in seats for decades, and finally gave up on an attempt to provide a new ballpark for its Cal League team. (New ballparks being catnip to minor-league operators.)

The Houston Astros, in Bakersfield for the past two years, appear to have an agreement to move their high Class-A operations to Fayetteville, N.C., and play in the Carolina League. Which includes a pledge for a $33 million stadium by 2019.

The Astros’ departure left the Cal League with nine teams, which does not work, for scheduling purposes, and the Texas Rangers, the High Desert affiliate, decided to decamp to Kinston, N.C., with the blessing of minor-league baseball — because it gave the Cal League eight teams and the Carolina League 10, and now it is easy to schedule.

The Mavericks were chosen to close up shop because the city and the club were fighting over the lease at the stadium and attendance had faded over the years, and the stadium, once the talk of the league, had begun to get a little tatty, as the British would say.

Eight teams in the Cal League sold at least 100,000 tickets in the 2016 season. Bakersfield and High Desert were the two that did not, and they are the two cities who will not host a ball team next year.

The last season was memorable from the standpoint of … the Rangers sent Adelanto some very good players, managed by the former Mets infielder Howard Johnson. His team went 82-58 and rolled through the playoffs, and the Mavs had their fourth championship, first since 1997, and almost certainly their last.