Major League Baseball and Australia (via the Australian Baseball Federation) announced that there will be, starting in November 2010, the reinstatement of the ABL – Australian Baseball League. The original league ran between 1989 thru 1999 when the costs of running such a league took a toll, and the league had to be broken up. Part of it surived as the Internationa Baseball League of Austrailia, but that fell apart by 2002. Anyway this new league features six teams in six cities, as shown by the logo sheet below (via MLB.com):
Side Note: I feel like I have seen the Bandits logo before. I think its somewhat common for colleges/high schools or something. Anyway the league will run from November through January where the playoffs will start (top four teams moving on into the playoffs). In other words this is sort of a farm league for MLB to have some of their talent, especially minor leaguers, play there in the winter as opposed to the winter leagues. If you remember the Hawaii winter league was recently shut down, so this is a slight replacement, except unlike the Hawaii winter league, these teams (I believe) are not owned by the MLB in the way were the players need to be connected to a big league club.
I'm all for this. I love seeing the sport of baseball travels across the world and it is in a country that hais had baseball before, so hopefully making a fan base will not be too difficult.
