Also, every fan could get a pony!

That's tough, because it would involve, like, countries getting along and stuff. I envision a scenario in which Nolan Ryan IV is pitching against the leadoff hitter and star SS of the expansion Saudi Arabian team, and he give the guy a little chin music because George Bush VI thinks oil prices have gone up a little too high and asked him to. Alternatively, officials of the league could search the Iraq team's locker room for corked bats of mass home runs, find none, and just not leave the clubhouse anyways. Or something.

Of course, this gives baseball cynics more to complain about when the Japanese players are getting paid in yen... "These ballplayers making BILLIONS these days don't know how good they've got it..."

You could also have heavily unbalanced schedules, with most games played intra-league but supplemented with two long interleague "road trips" each year for each division. So, Americas based teams would make one trip to Asia, where they would play, say, six road-series, sandwiched around 3-5 days of travel time. And the Asian teams would do the same coming to the Americas. Two months of the season would go inter-league, with one portion a serious homestand, and the other a serious road trip.

Wow, the cynics are really out on this one.

If Richard Branson's Space Planes, and please pardon the pun, take off, we might see "global baseball," say, within the next 100 years.

One of the big problems you'll see is the time difference. It already sucks to watch a Mets @ Padres game, because it begins 20 minutes before I head to bed. When the Mets opened the season in Japan vs the Cubs, I was up at 5 am to watch. I can't do that any more.

I think it would be great. I'd love to see MLB go to the world, isn't
that the whole point of opening in Japan and the WBC?

Sure, travel time would be a pain, but so what. Build in a rest day here
and there and you're good. Just balance the schedules so no team has to
travel significantly more then another and it's all fair.

Then when the World Series is played the winner will really be world champs.

The time difference for the fans is less important to me than the time difference for the players. Let's say hypersonic planes cut the trip from Seattle to Tokyo to 2 hours (can't go sonic over the US, the sonic boom would cause too many problems). It's still something like a 15 hour delay. So players who are used to playing at 7 pm are now playing 10 am games-- probably when they are usually asleep. Trying to hit a 100 mph fastball when my body is out of sync, or trying to figure out if that curveball is going to be too low while my brain is in bed, that's just not going happen.

I do like the idea of taking a week or so off after the League Series Championships, so that the winner of the Western (Hemisphere) League Championship plays the winner of the Eastern (Hemisphere) L.C. for a true World Series. The quality of play in the WBC shows to me that such a thing is doable. Perhaps we can start by putting a MLB team in Havana -- the day after Castro dies and there are free elections in Cuba.

I think the travel times will eventually shorten to make it practical, but I actually wonder about the legal aspects of it, particularly a collective bargaining agreement. US and Canadian labor law are different enough to make that a delicate issue and we are both common law (British descended) systems. Imagine dealing with literally dozens of different versions of anti-trust and labor law. What if the union wants to strike, but the laws of one country won't allow it? I think that could end up being the real difficulty.

I like the idea....but why only 12 teams in Asia? And 3 times more teams in the Americas? Could it be possible to fit 24 teams in Asia? Maybe the whole Japanese major leagues and Korea and China and Taiwan?

David:

Don't mean to rain on your parade, but you can lump me in with the cynics. Two big reasons stand out to me - first, if the draft pool is the same I think the players association here (and probably in the Asian, Latin American leagues) would freak. Not every drafted player is going to be happy living in another country, potentially halfway around the globe.

Second, I LIKE all the different leagues, just like international football (soccer). Its cool to see the different styles emerge, different patterns of uniform, crowd character, etc. I think we are closer and closer to "competitive" leagues; Japan can now hold its own with MLB, I think.

Something that might improve MLB and some other leagues is improved sharing of players, maybe by allowing "transfers" like in soccer, or bonuses for star players willing to relocate to another country for a period of time.

I think we'll see MLB in Japan in the next century, though I feel it's more likely to be just a team or two, and maybe 4 teams in Asia total.

The NBA has been discussing expansion overseas for at least the last decade, and they'll do it long before MLB.

The computer I'm using right now would have barely fit into a large room at a university 40 years ago. Knee problems that would have ended careers and left the injured to walk with a cane 10 years ago for life now are taken care of without having to make an incision. When the "great crash" happened in '87, the market fell to 1800, and many said it would never get back to 2500 again.

Naysayers have little appreciation for how quickly we advance, because there's financial incentive to do so.

I think this world league idea is a pipe dream. The travel technology is the least of the problems. Who will build stadiums in Europe and Japan that can support major league franchises? You know the teams won't do it, and municipalities in Europe and Japan won't be so easily blackmailed as they are here. Plus, you'll hear from the players union about players not wanting to relocate to Japan or Europe.

I think adwred hit on a good point above, regarinding international soccer. Seeing as how we got the WBC idea from the popularity of the World Cup, we may emulate their domestic leagues as well. There is not one big international league with team from different countries--each country has its own good domestic league. But they have different continential competitions, notably Champions League, where 1-4 teams from each domestic league (depending on the quality of the league) play each other in a year-long tournament that doesn't take too much time out of the schedule. So, you have the LCS participants, then maybe the top 2 teams each from Japan, Korea, Cuba, D.R., etc. etc., compete in a tournament that trumps winter ball, or occurs the following season with weekend series incorporated into the regular schedule. Then you have a second tier tournament, akin to UEFA Cup, where more teams get a chance to play internationally. You don't have crazy travel schedules, logistics wouldn't be incredibly difficult, and you get to retain the tradition of domestic leagues while getting the best internationally playing each other. I mean, think about it, you think a Royals-Rays game draws little interest, imagine the lack of interest the last-place team from Taiwan playing the last-place team in Italy would garner.

well david,

i think the points about different laws in every country AND the problem with players maybe not wanting to play in different countries is a real problem. i mean, where you gonna hold the minor leagues? what about guys families? pleanty of grrrls might could not WANNA move to some foreign place - no job, no friends, no family of her own, don't know the language etc.

i personally think it might could work better to just hold the wbc after the series in each country is finished

Boy, the critics here sure sound like the same folk who pooh-pooh the WBC before it started. I haven't read many apologies by that crowd, let me tell ya!

The obstacles are great, but organization seems to move much faster these days - in sports. The objections above, and others, are peculiarly unconvincing, even simplistic. (How far can I push before sounding insulting? I don't wish to.)
If the WBC gets past a third event with half the success and excitement of the first (and politics and the world economy does not intervene) I find it very likely that a worldwide set of leagues will be set up.

It will be a better world, in every way (to my POV) that allows something like an international baseball competition to exist.

I think the The European Champions League provides a working model. It is the title of reference to win in Europe. Exceptional competition is guaranteed. Greats,like England's Chelsea, Manchester United, Italy's AC Milan , Spain's Real Madrid and Deportivo la Coruna , Scotland's Glasgow Celtic, Germany's Bayern Munich and Monaco from France , bring the very best of to this competition. The basics, how it works, are explained here: http://worldsoccer.about.com/od/championsleague/a/clexplained.htm

Ken Hardin is spot on. This would work in today's environment. It would benefit baseball in a huge way and would actually guarantee a "World" Series.

yeah but all these teams in europe. i looked at the map and it look like you can fit all them countries into just texas. so you got no problems with travel and 17 hour time zones etc.

and even IF you get worldwide leagues i STILL think you gonna have just post season play. too much trouble about the time differences. and SERIOUS trouble about drafting people to go to different countries.

and i am NOT apologising about anything i said about the wbc neither. i think it was boring and screwed up spring training

So what? I wouldn't accept your apology anyway, so there!!! [humph!]

The fact is, in Japan and Korea, there already are stadia that can accomodate MLB teams.

I think David, and others here, are just having a good time dreaming about how the internationalization of baseball might (or might not) work on a grander scale.

What might be interesting in the shorter term...perhaps a tournament of the winning teams from each league as they operate right now...not just the "star-studded" cast we saw for the WBC, but say, the Chicago White Sox vs. The Hanshin Tigers. Make the stakes a big cash prize for the winning teams' players in order to get the Player's Association on board, then have the American Series followed by the World Series every October.