[CD360]

Douglas Wilson never expected much out of life. He was content living in 1912 California with his wife and children, working as commissioner of the local baseball league. Even when tension across the world rose, he was happy as long as he had his wife and kids by his side. Then, everything changed when his wife volunteered to be the assistant to a local magician. The magician tried out his new trick of sawing his assistant in half without a box. The audience adored the trick but her internal organs did not. Taking his wife’s death as a sign, Douglas packed up his things and took his children to start a new life.

This turned out to be a harder task than expected. With Europe in shambles, choosing a country to start a new life at was difficult. He eventually decided on Japan, only to once again discover that he hadn’t thought his decision through. As it turns out, Japan doesn’t have a demand for unskilled, untrained Americans who can’t speak a word of Japanese. In an act of desperation, he turned to the only thing he knew: baseball.

Surprisingly, Japan fell in love with the game and his league was starting to bring in a few thousand people for each game. By 1920, he had sold off his league to an investor (a investor who had already bought a few start up leagues in Korea, Taiwan and the colonies in China) so he could continue to act as a missionary of the game. He moved to Britain where baseball managed to “colonise” cricket and spread across europe. In 1932, the first official game between two countries’ national teams took place when the British played the French in Paris. Douglas attended the game in the left field stands, amazed at what he accomplished. In the bottom of the ninth, the French were down by 2 when their cleanup hitter, Michel Marin came up with the bases loaded. In a 2-1 count, and launched a ball into left field, striking Douglas directly on the head.

The funeral was simple yet nice. People from all over the world came to celebrate the missionary. Without their father, Douglas’ children all scattered across the globe. Charles Douglas moved to Australia, where he started a league that eventually grow to encompass all of Oceania, along with Southeast Asia. The twins, Dorothy and Edward, moved to separate ends of Africa, expanding on the already existing knowledge of baseball. Anna moved to India, where she capitalized on East Asia’s existing love of baseball and spread it to the rest of Asia. Elmer went back to America to check up on the progress the game had made without his father. To his surprise, it was a significant feature of American culture and traveled throughout Latin America to spread it more.

Then there was the youngest child, Joseph. At first, Joseph seemed the be the failure of the bunch, moving back to America to become a world renowned environmental scientist. Then, in the heat of the cold war, Joseph’s destiny was made clear. He was one of 2,000 scientists chosen to accompany the roughly 20,000 miners in the newly developed city of Lincoln, Antarctica. In Lincoln, a new league formed and Joseph was chosen as commissioner (he originally refused but the government offered him good incentive to reconsider). In the 1970’s as the remaining children reached the ends of their lives, they settled in Guam. There Joseph, Charles, Ana and Edward founded the Guam baseball society, an independent league primarily founded so they could make bets on teams without an expansive knowledge on the players.

In 2002, the many national leagues decided to join together in the Douglas Wilson Baseball Association. 2017 was the first year the league would be put into practice. This is the story of one team that tries to make it to the top of the association.

Synopsis: This dynasty will focus on one team (The San Diego Stingrays) as they try to climb the international ladder of baseball. Throughout the dynasty, I’ll also be taking over different international teams. The idea behind this is really about taking control of a team of an average team in the best league. So, even though I’ll be having players stolen from me by larger market teams, I’ll also be stealing players from teams at a lower level.
My biggest problem toward the beginning will be getting under budget. Since generating player contracts doesn’t take team payroll into consideration (and I find having a team from Honolulu have a bigger budget that one from New York immersion breaking) some of the team payrolls are a little out of control. This includes mine (136 budget vs 177 payroll). I’ll be doing a write up on my team along with simming to opening day next post but I’m just going to go over the world for the rest of this.

World Background Information: The DWBA consists of 11 leagues. Each of these leagues has one characteristic that makes them stand out. (Leagues ranked from worst to best according to DWBA seeding)
Arctic: Eye
African: Field/Speed/Avoid K’s
Southwest Asian League (Consists of everything from Bangladesh to Israel and under China): Control
Eastern Europe: Gap Power
Oceania: Power
Larger Asian League (China, Russia and other countries like Mongolia): Movement
South America: Gap Power/Movement
Europe: Stuff
Caribbean: Power
East Asia: Contact/Avoid K’s
North America: Vanilla

The worse the league, the more radical the ratings. For example, in the African Baseball League (ABL) almost all players are speedy, elite defenders. This is done so players are appealing to the high up leagues as at least 4th outfielders and super utilities. The Arctic Baseball Association (ABA)is the exact opposite. It prides itself on batters with some power and a great eye. This allows for many players to move into upper leagues in a pinch hitting capability.

The only other major outlier of leagues in the DWBA is the EUBL. This is because the EUBL is actually a promotion/relegation league made up of 5 different leagues. The most prestigious, the EUBL1, is the only one that competes in the DWBA association playoff each year. Each league sends 2 teams up and 2 down every year except the second and third league. Each year the EUBL2 and EUBL3 exchange 4 different teams. While this may seem like a bridge, it’s actually more of a moat. The four team exchange makes it easy for teams to either progress or regress each year. This creates a group of “EUBL2.5” teams that, while better than team in the third division, are weaker than those in the second. Because of this, lower league players often strive to join one of these “2.5” teams so they can showcase their talent in the secondary league and hope for an even better contract.

Next, let’s look at Antarctica. Antarctica is made up of 7 different states. Except one, these are all just territories controlled by the United States, European Union, China, United Kingdom, India and Japan. The exception to this is the New Russian Republic that declared independence after the fall of the Soviet Union. While they may be territories, all of antarctica is governed by the United Nations and, while not technically its own country, is allowed a seat on the U.N. as the 194th country.

Finally, the Guam Baseball Society. While originally founded for gambling, the GBS has become the world’s most prestigious independent league. While taking place in Guam, people from every U.S. territory (except Puerto Rico) are drafted into the league. Beyond these players, the league is filled with rejected talent from all over the world. Since there are only 5 round drafts and players can only sign one year contracts, a majority of the league's talent is imported.