[FuzzyRussianHat]

2008 saw a significant change for South Asia Baseball with the departure of Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru from the Southeast Asia League. The two Malaysian teams had been generally disgruntled with the lack of competitive balance in SEAL. Both had been negotiating with Austronesia Professional Baseball on a potential jump.

The move made a lot of cultural and geographic sense, as the two teams shared a lot in common with the Indonesian teams of the Sundaland Association and Singapore. A conflict between Malaysia and Indonesia in the mid 1960s had prevented KL and JB from joining APB when it formed in 1965. The countries were now largely on good terms and had far more cultural similarities than Malaysia had with the other SEAL teams.

The opportunity to jump finally emerged as APB looked to expand for the first time in the 2000s. They added a team to the Taiwan and Philippine Leagues in 2007 and made room for the Malaysian teams in 2008. SAB had expanded in 2004 and wanted to grow more also, although they had hoped for a longer gap between changes.



To keep SEAL at seven teams in two divisions despite the defection, two expansion teams were added for 2008. The Colombo Catfish (Sri Lanka) and Hai Phong Prowlers (Vietnam) were welcomed into the league. Sri Lanka was a bit out of place geographically, but was a growing market. SAB officials thought it made more sense to get them into SEAL instead of being the one non-Indian team in the Indian League.

Colombo was moved into the South Division, which had been the home previously for both Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru. The Prowlers were the fourth Vietnamese team and were put in the North Division. To achieve balance in the divisions, someone from the North had to switch to the South. That was preferred generally over blowing it up and switching to a West/East divide.

The controversial decision was made to move Yangon over to the South Division. It made sense geographically as the furthest south option by a decent margin, but it shifted the competitive balance. Over the last decade plus, the Green Dragons had largely dominated the North while Ho Chi Minh City had dominated the South. Now, these two teams would be divisional rivals. They had already established an intense playoff rivalry. SAB kept this alignment until the next expansion in 2025.

Both Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru ended up in the Malacca League. In order to keep an even balance, one team needed to be moved to the Java League. As they were the furthest east team geographically, Palembang was shifted out of the Malacca League.

The Java League had its name from having five teams on the island of Java. Palembang was part of Sumatra, although the travel wouldn’t be much different for the Panthers going southeast instead of north. To reflect Palembang’s addition, the Java League was renamed the Java Sea League, as both islands bordered the sea.



APB maintained this alignment until their next expansion in 2028. Neither APB nor SAB made any changes to their playoff structures or other rule changes. Johor Bahru and Kuala Lumpur brought their players over and joined as is, while the two new SAB teams built their rosters via expansion draft.