A look around the leagues

I'll be the first to admit,this is what we call a slow news day. There just isn't that much out there today to post on, as far as what I do. What I'm going to do here in the next few weeks, is to take a look at the leagues around the world. The different countries that play baseball, the ones that have professional leagues,the structure of the leagues, something about the teams, Americans playing on them, and some brief background.

I'll start working on this over the weekend, but coupled with the slow news day and house hunting, there really isn't much today at all.

The structure I'll go with will be mostly as follows:

Country

Number of leagues

History of leagues

Current teams in league, to include location, park, etc

Schedule

Playoff/championship format

Some statistical stuff about the league, such as career leaders in different stats,if I can find it

Past winners

Viability of the league

How it fits with the country, in my perspective

Americans playing/in have played in the league

Whatever else I can think of



So that's the plan over the next few weeks. I'll try to do one or two a week, as I can get to it. I start working a real job next week, but I think that will help. I usually spend my days sitting at the computer, and sometimes just can't force myself to write. Having a job,and a regular schedule is better for me, and I can get back into a regular routine.

A slice of the American pie

For the first time, high school baseball is an official DODDS-Europe sport. Now that might not seem like a big deal to a lot of people, but I think it's great. As someone who attended DODDS schools in Europe as a kid, and having seen them in my years around the world, it's about time this happened:

When the season opens March 21, high school baseball players in Europe will be wearing the same uniforms, playing on the same fields and even playing alongside and against many of the same players they faced last year.

But as players and coaches know, high school baseball in 2009 is a different animal. Instead of being administered and run by Child and Youth Services

Military families are stationed all over the world, some in large communites with several thousand Americans, and others in out of the way places with just a handful. While I always enjoyed my time overseas, Americans are Americans, and we grow up a certain way. Any slice of America when you in a foreign country is always a welcome thing. A McDonalds in Pretoria, a Dunkin' Donuts in Sofia, and TGI Friday in Riga, or a KFC in Bournemouth are always a good thing.

So the fact that high school kids will actually get to play varsity baseball instead of Youth Services baseball is great:

According to athletic director Karen Seadore, the school system decided to offer baseball after DODDS-Europe director Diana Ohman told an April schools advisory meeting in Naples that she favored offering baseball.

"We decided to adopt baseball sometime last spring when Ms. Ohman suggested it," Seadore said by telephone last month. "We looked at funds available and met again in August. Everybody was on board."

Seven months later, 19 schools are scheduled to open the inaugural DODDS-Europe baseball season. Most are Division I-II size, but three D-III schools — AFNORTH, Hohenfels and Vicenza — and D-IV rivals Rota and Sigonella are going to give it a go.

There are some issues, as there always are in situations like this:

With three sports — soccer, baseball and track — competing for the limited number of players, those smaller schools might be battling numbers as often as opposition curve balls.

"There are only 13 students out for baseball at AFNORTH," wrote Greg Blankenship, who coaches the defending European Division III champion Lion soccer team, "and unfortunately the numbers could plummet. . . . "

Again, this might be one of those things that a lot of people don't understand. Most Americans don't understand the concept of living in a foreign country, let alone raising a family in one. Trying to give their kids a sense identity is a difficult thing at times.

So congratulations to DODDS for finally figuring this one out. Any time kids are involved with after school activities, its a good thing. Making baseball a school sport instead of a Saturday thing will only help the kids, and make the community stronger.


Thanks to

Stars and Stripes

for the link.

The Emerald Guide

The Emerald Guide to Baseball 2009 is free:

The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) has made The Emerald Guide to Baseball 2009 available for download at its web site. The Guide is packed with 586 pages of baseball goodness and it’s FREE!

Thankfully the good folks at SABR decided to pick up the torch dropped by The Sporting News when TSN decided to discontinue its Baseball Guide series after 2006. The Emerald Guide is loaded with information including front office personnel, minor league affiliates, spring rosters, broadcasting teams, 2009 schedules, and leaderboards for every major league team.

It's a great read, and it full of fantastic information, and I highly recommend it.

And the best part:

You don’t have to be a member of SABR to obtain a free copy, but if you’re a baseball fan (and since you’re here reading this, I assume you are), you really should consider joining. While you’re chewing on it, you can get your free copy of the 2009 Emerald Guide here.

Baseball and free stuff. I'm lovin' it.

A govermentment bailout

Fresh off of their 2 games and out performance in the World Baseball Classic, the Taiwanese government is going to get involved in the sport and and do what it can to revitalize the game:

The Cabinet-level Sports Affairs Council (SAC) will hold consultations with local-level governments and enterprises to work out plans of organizing new baseball teams as part of a program to revitalize the sport in Taiwan.

The move follows a decision by the Executive Yuan (Cabinet) on Wednesday to inject NT$1.26 billion (US$37.28 million) into various projects over the next four years to bring a revival in baseball.

This is interesting to me. With everyone screaming about publicly-funded stadiums (and I agree), how do you think it would go over if the government - any government: local, county, state, or federal - decided to spend $37 mil to revitalize baseball in the country. There would be a hissy fit of epic proportions. Especially when some guys are making $20 mil a year in salary.

However, the taxpayers in Taiwan don't have to worry about the government doing it alone:

Senior executives from major enterprises like Taiwan Cooperative Bank, Taiwan
Power, Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor, Chunghwa Telecom, and China Steel Corp. will also be invited to establish a fresh organization for the new baseball teams.

This isn't just for the Taiwanese professional league, which is now down to 4 teams:

Keelung City said it will also recruit outstanding players to set up a team. Projects to be carried out under the four-year revival plan will include helping Taiwan's top-tier professional baseball organization — the Chinese Professional Baseball League — form a second-tier professional league and providing financial assistance to any organization or corporation that intends to establish adult amateur baseball teams. The revival plan also calls for the development of a comprehensive mechanism for the formation and training of national baseball teams at various levels.

The SAC has worked out operational guidelines for the formation of more adult teams, with the goal of establishing 10 amateur teams this year. In order to organize high-caliber national teams, the SAC will divide international competitions into three tiers, with the Olympic Games, Asian Games and World Baseball Classic at the top.

Basically, what they are doing is revitalizing the game in the country, at all levels. It has taken a serious hit in the last few years, with rampant gambling and game-fixing. This is a scale of fixing the game after the Black Sox scandal, but there isn't a Taiwanese Babe Ruth on the horizon anywhere.

Taiwan is a baseball playing nation, and used to be a force to be reckoned with. In light of their situation in the international scheme of things, it gave them a sense of identity and honor in a world where most countries don't formally acknowledge their existence. They're losing that now, and the government (rightly so) is doing something to bring that back.

The problem is, it takes more than just throwing money at a problem to fix it. Unless you're an American banking institution, then it's okay. If they don't change the perception of baseball in Taiwan, it's going to fade away. That's not a good thing for them.

New article up

My latest article is up on baseball de world, in the Home page and MLB section.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Ted says 'Baseball is spring'

Ted Turner, former owner of the Atlanta Braves, and current owner of the United Nations, has made his pitch for baseball to remain in the Olympics.

Media mogul Ted Turner stopped by the IBAF booth at Sport Accord on Thursday. Turner addressed the conference on the need to use sport as a vehicle for social change, which is one of baseball’s prime messages for Olympic reinstatement. He also spoke to the group specifically about the value of baseball being on the Olympic programme, adding that “The Olympics without baseball is like spring without summer.”

Nice of Ted to leave the United Nations in the 'capable' hands of the diplomats for a day and get out and about in support of baseball. I think, because this quote has me a little confused:

Turner says, “The Olympics without baseball is like spring without summer.”

I'm not really sure what it means. Maybe something along the lines of "a fool without his money is like light without dark?".

Yeah, I'm confused. It's nice Ted wants to be involved, if he does to baseball (again) what he did for the United Nations, we might just be screwed.

If anyone knows what that statement actually meant, please let me know. Really. Because I'm clueless on this one.

Invading the South

The American military will invade the Caribbean and South America. But this time it's a good thing, and the soldiers of the Southern Command will be welcomed by the host nations. That doesn't always happen a lot when we go somewhere, but sometimes it does. Always nice to know we are welcomed with open arms. Of course, the biggest danger the military poses this time is how little money they will pump into the local economy.

A baseball team representing U.S. Southern Command will begin a 25-day “friendship tour” to five Latin American nations March 27 to play in exhibition games and conduct free clinics for aspiring players.

The team is scheduled to visit communities in Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, Chile and the Dominican Republic.

But it's not all fun and games, and it never is:

The team - which will also visit schools, hospitals, orphanages and little leagues - will participate in exhibition games with military and civilian teams, and conduct clinics for various age groups.

I've done some of those trips myself. Not playing baseball, but with our Humanitarian Assistance programs every military organization has. And as much as I love playing baseball, I can honestly say the best part of the visits were always the visits to the schools, hospitals, and orphanages. There was usually a truck load of gifts that went with us. That went over well, but the people we visited would brag about how American soldiers came to visit them. And it would make the front page in the local papers, and a couple of times, we were the lead story on the local news. But for some strange reason, you never really hear about this in the American or European press. Odd, isn't it?

The tour, dubbed Baseball Partnership Tour 2009, was planned in coordination with the State Department, host governments and Major League Baseball. It affords players an opportunity to take part in camaraderie-building athletic activities as goodwill representatives of their nation and the sport, officials said.

Now in its second year, the tour represents the command’s ongoing commitment to strengthening friendships with partner nations in the hemisphere through activities that range from combined military training and exercises to personal interaction outside of traditional military settings.

Whatever problems people have with the military, and I don't why they do when they vote for the same politicians year after year, they should get to know the real story of what we do, and how we are received around the world.

Too many people have a negative image of the military, and don't really understand how these things work. But they do, and the military, with the humanitarian assistance programs we have, does a better job fostering a positive image of the United States than the media does of tearing it down.

And the fact that they're using baseball to do it makes it twice as sweet. I've done this. It's a life-changing experience.