[CivicEvo]

(DISCLAIMER: In real life, there'd obviously be a ton more time, money, and bottlenecks to this story. But this isn't real life, so this is the theoretical background of the International Baseball Federation)

July 14, 1999
Boston, Massachusetts

It's one day after the 1999 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. After an emotional evening at Fenway Park, where Ted Williams made a public appearance, a meeting takes place in a hotel room in Copley Square. It's between representatives of Major League Baseball and two men pitching an idea.

The idea?

Wouldn't it be great to grow baseball to compete with FIFA? To make baseball a true global game?

Those two men were Tim Harper and Roy Fabian. The two men had crossed paths in the financial world in New York City, somewhat close to the New Canaan, CT home of Harper. Fabian was pretty much the polar opposite - understanding, hands-off, and from Washington State.

They went in and pitched their idea of what would be known as the International Baseball Federation (IBF), a project that would begin with the partnership with Major League Baseball and expand outward to all other countries.

The pitch was to leverage the popularity of baseball in North America and start expanding out to neighboring countries before expanding to Asia, South America, and eventually Europe and Africa.

Major League Baseball denied the pitch. Remember, this was before the World Baseball Classic. At the time, international baseball was not a priority. And so, Harper and Fabian went home - back to New York.

October 5, 1999
New York, New York

Tim Harper and Roy Fabian sit in a conference room at the Grand Hyatt in New York City, mere blocks from Times Square. There the plan is finalized to officially incorporate the International Baseball Federation as of January 1, 2000.

How they got from a hotel room in Boston to a hotel room in New York with enough funding to create an entire baseball federation isn't as complicated they would like you to believe. At the end of the day, these were hedge fund guys. And hedge fund guys have money. Sure, the IBF would not start with the power of MLB and the allure that would drive high end talent, but these guys were determined to make this work. With the majority of their plan completed before meeting with MLB in July of 1999, this meeting was about tying up loose ends.

The mission? Start with a low profile and build up year after year from there. They laid out a business plan:

Year 1 - Create and open the United States Baseball League
Year 10 - Launch neighboring North American Leagues; Host North American international and club tournaments
Year 25 - Launch leagues in Asia and South America; Launch the Baseball World Cup
Year 40 - Continue to expand with leagues in neighboring continents while launching first European League and Australian League
Year 75 - Expand into Africa

Now you might be thinking, there's no way that two astute businessmen could legitimately predict 75 years into the future. Of course, that would be correct. But they needed to show a grandiose plan to get other owners interested, to get sponsors interested, and to get talent interested. And so they did - after a fundraising tour of 60 days, the following was announced the first business day after New Year's in 2000.

January 3, 2000
UNITED STATES BASEBALL LEAGUE LAUNCHED

Tim Harper and Roy Fabian announce the launch and creation of the International Baseball Federation (IBF). The IBF will be the governing body for all national and international baseball competitions going forward.

The first league that has association to the IBF is the United States Baseball League (USA). Side Note: All league abbreviations will be their country abbreviation for ease. Within the USA league, four teams have been confirmed by the league as active members:

Chicago Baseball Club
Dallas Baseball Club
Los Angeles Baseball Club
New York Baseball Club

Tim Harper will own the Chicago club, and Roy Fabian will own the Los Angeles Club. Dallas and New York have also been purchased for approximately $100K each.

As the league looks to minimize risk, overhead, and expenses, each team will only play 40 games during the 2000 season. Each team will also have a salary cap of $25,000 during the 2000 season. A national television contract has been signed with Fox Sports to air the games nationally on delay (usually in the graveyard hours), as well as local television stations to air the team's games, and sponsorships have been signed with multiple national companies to start.

Major League Baseball has responded to this news by threatening to *ban* any player who defects into the IBF. At the current rate of salaries, this is obviously a non-issue, but for future players and international free agents, the rule applies. As such, the inaugural rosters are likely to be consisted of former minor league players who are now in other fields (contracting, teaching etc.) and can take off two months during the summer.

The IBF has worked out deals with the cities for the teams to play in shared ballparks, with construction to begin in the four "first" cities to open new ballparks in 2002.

With the sponsorship contracts and low salaries, net balances are expected to be between $100,000 and $150,000 for the season. IBF pledges to be transparent with the federation's finances to ensure accuracy and integrity.

The league is expected to open on July 1, 2000.

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OK, all of that said, now the reporting begins. Next post will be the 2000 Summary and Review. I'm still simulating in the Year 2003 (probably will be done this week), so it's likely we'll join a more current IBF/USA League in the Year 2004.

Some player and team backgrounds to come as well.