[FuzzyRussianHat]

Like in Europe, baseball’s popularity had continued to grow rapidly throughout Africa. The African Association of Baseball had introduced 16 new teams in 2018 for the African Second League. More markets had emerged as franchise ready and AAB officials weighed the best way to grow the game.

Since the 1995 inception, AAB had used two conferences with 10 teams each. Officials decided to grow that starting in 2029 to 12 teams per conference for 24 teams total. The top two teams from the prior year’s A2L season moved up (Windhoek, Maseru, Bukavu, Pointe-Noire) while no teams from AAB were relegated. AAB’s playoff setup remained the same with the top two in the standings meeting in a best-of-seven conference championship, followed by the best-of-nine Africa Series.

As for A2L, there would be eight total expansion teams split between the two conferences. Two teams filled the void of the promoted squads, while another two grew A2L to a similar 12x2 setup to AAB. A2L’s playoff format remained the same as well and maintained the structure of having the conference championships promoted and the last place finishers in both conferences relegated.



The Southern Conference added first new countries with the eponymous Eswatini Engineers (formerly known as Swaziland) and with the island Reunion Revolution. They also added the South Africa based Bloemfontein Beagles and Pretoria Purple Rage.

The Central Conference arguably added a new country with the Hargeisa Green Eagles. That is the capital of unrecognized Somaliland, a breakaway state from Somalia. The other new teams were the Kisumu Swamp Dragons (Kenya), Kisangani Starlings (Democratic Republic of the Congo), and Zanzibar Beacons (Tanzania).