[FuzzyRussianHat]

Only a few days after Kharkiv beat Tashkent in an EPB Championship rematch, the firstdomino officially fell. The Killer Bees, along with Kyiv, Warsaw, Prague, Helsinki, Riga, Vilnius, Bratislava, Budapest, Bucharest, Tirana, Sofia, Yerevan, and Tbilisi declared their intent to leave EPB for the European Baseball Federation. This immediately grew the EBF from 30 teams to 44 teams.

Because 44 was an awkward number and with the talks of new expansion teams, EBF also opted to add four brand new teams. Looking to grow more in Poland and Ukraine, the Southern Conference added teams in Krakow and Odessa. The other two additions came in the Northern Conference with England-based Manchester and Germany-based Cologne. The new alignment would feature two 24-team conferences made up of four divisions of six teams each. EBF was now behind only the 56-team MLB in terms of size among the Global Baseball Alliance leagues.



In the Northern Conference, the British Isles division kept its same five teams and added the new Manchester Crushers franchise. The Northwest Division had the same story with its same five-team lineup along with the new Cologne Copperheads.

The North Central Division retained Berlin and Hamburg from its original lineup. Four from the EPB exodus joined them with Kharkiv, Prague, Warsaw, and Kyiv. The new Northeast Division had the other three former North Central teams (Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm) and added three from EPB (Helsinki, Riga, VIlnius).

The Southern Conference’s Southwest Division kept the same five teams and saw Milan shifted over from the South Central Division. The other four South Central teams remained, but both Zagreb and Munich were moved out of the Southeast Division into the South Central.

The other three teams formerly in the Southeast Division (Athens, Belgrade, Vienna) became part of the new East Central Division. They were joined by the expansion Krakow Canines and EPB squads Bratislava and Budapest.

The brand new Southeast Division had the expansion Odessa Drifters with five former EPB teams. Three (Bucharest, Tirana, Sofia) were former EPB European League South Division rivals. The other two (Yerevan, Tbilisi) came over from the EPB Asian League.

The massive EBF expansion also meant that EBF would expand its postseason to a format similar to MLB. Six teams from each conference would advance; the four division winners and two wild cards. The top two division winners earned byes, while the other two division winners host the wild cards in a best-of-three first round series. The second round was best-of-five with both the conference championship and European Championship retaining the best-of-seven structure.


About a week after the defectors to the EBF announced their move, six teams from EPB’s Asian League declared their intent to leave for the Asian Baseball Federation. The teams leaving were defending AL champ Tashkent, Dushanbe, Bishkek, Almaty, Baku, and Asgabat.

ABF had previously been set up with the ten-team West Asia Association (split between Turkish and Iranian teams) and the eight-team Pakistan League. The six additions brought the ABF to 24 teams. Officials decided to restructure the league into two 12-team leagues with no divisions. They were renamed as the East League and West League. The East League had the eight Pakistan League teams along with Dushanbe, Bishkek, Tashkent, and Almaty. The West League was the ten WAA teams along with Baku and Asgabat.



ABF also chose to expand its postseason with the new teams coming in. The new set up saw the top four teams from each league advance with a best-of-five first round, best-of-seven league championship, and best-of-seven ABF Championship. ABF maintained the split DH between the leagues with the West League using it and the East League not using it.

Very quickly, Eurasian Professional Baseball found itself down to only 12 teams. The Asian League still had its seven Russian teams and Mongolia-based Ulaanbaatar. However, the European League now had only Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, and Minsk. The EPB announced they would hold an expansion draft and add four new teams to the EL. EPB would steadily expand every few years to try to regain its former prestige.



The new franchises were all Russian with the Nizhny Novgorod Ninjas, Volgograd Voyagers, Samara Steelers, and Rostov Rhinos. The league structure would be two eight-team leagues, comparable to the Oceania Baseball Association. Both EPB and OBA were now the smallest of the GBA leagues with 16 total teams.

EPB also decided to shrink its postseason as well, eliminating the wild card round games. The top two teams in the standings would meet in a best-of-seven LCS with the winners playing in the best-of-seven EPB Championship. One other change was that EPB introduced interleague play with the new format, trying to create more compelling matchups throughout the season.



Each of these new formats would be relatively short-lived as pro baseball would see much expansion worldwide in the next few decades. EBF would maintain its structure for a while, but would create the Second League and begin a promotion/relegation system for its 48 spots. EPB’s next expansion would be 2008 with ABF expanding in 2009.