A Champion’s League for Baseball
Usually, when this site covers Ricardo Fraccari and the World Baseball Softball Confederation it’s from a negative point of view. My issues with the way Fraccari and his organization do business haven’t changed. However, I give credit where credit is due and on his recent trip to Cuba, Fraccari revealed a proposal he has for international baseball that is, in short, absolutely fantastic.
At this point, we don’t know much beyond the not-so-modest proposal Fraccari put forth. For that reason, I can’t give any specifics as to how his proposal would be implemented, any sort of time frame, etc. Be that as it may, the proposal put forth is a great one and worth talking about even if I do worry it will never come to pass. Fraccari’s proposal was essentially Serie del Caribe on steroids: a global club championship akin to how the Champion’s League is run in football.
The scope of a Champion’s League for baseball is totally unknown at this time, if it ever even comes to exist. That doesn’t stop me from running through all sorts of ideas in my head of who could participate. The one thing Fraccari did make clear is that his vision is one where champions from various leagues compete to determine a continental champion and then those champions go on to a worldwide tournament. It is, for lack of better phrasing, an absolutely bonkers proposal but one that pretty much every baseball fan should love.
I say baseball fan, because, let’s be honest, there’s zero chance that Major League Baseball or any of their affiliated ballclubs participate in this tournament. It’s not their idea, they likely couldn’t profit off of it, and they aren’t about to share control of any tournament with any other organization or leagues.
Basically, remove any idea of affiliated ballclubs competing out of your head right now. That is kind of a downer and may turn some people away from the tournament Fraccari is proposing. I don’t care all that much; MLB is going to do what they want to do and that’s almost never what is in the best interest of baseball or the fans. Why would this situation be any different?
As for the actual clubs that would participate, we have no idea what that would look like at this time. There’s always the chance that organizations like Nippon Professional Baseball, Korea Baseball Organization, the Atlantic League, or Liga de Béisbol Profesional de la República Dominicana, to name just a few, would decide to not participate. I hope that isn’t the case; I want to live in a world where the Doosan Bears are squaring off with Estrellas Orientales in some global tournament. You should want to live in that world, too. Every single fan of baseball should want this tournament to happen.
The logistics of Fraccari’s tournament coming to pass will be massive. There’s a chance it doesn’t happen at all or that it does happen but in a very muted and underwhelming form. For right now, all we have is the idea. It’s a great idea, the sort that I don’t typically expect from a capitalist like Fraccari. Still, the idea of a Champion’s League for Baseball has been put out there. All we can do now is hope and dream it becomes a reality in the next few years.
