Baseball Is Here

Organized Professional Baseball To Debut Nationwide

by Damien Lia Toku for Amblint Spirit

May 28, 1928

AMBLINT, CARROLL – During the month of May, our fine city-in-the-hills, more known for its art, theatre and philosophy than for athletics, was among the first to witness the game of organized baseball. Players came from across the continent, as far north as the mountains of North Woodlyn, as far south as the isles of Spereaux. They come from the shores of the Cooper Sea, from the farm towns of Huggins, from the beaches of Warner Bay, from the forests of Snowgate, with other players from a thousand places, on teams representing the biggest and brightest cities in our country. They play a deceptively simple, undeniably exciting game that is new to many here in Amblint, but has been raising eyebrows in cities and towns across Uplantica for years now. This summer, these teams will compete in a brand new professional athletic league called the Uplantic Association of Organized Baseball (UA).

Here in Amblint, we’ve been lucky enough to become familiar with the teams of the UA up close for the first time. The city of Amblint will not be represented by a professional team. At least not yet. The UA owners chose Amblint as the league’s spring training site because it has plenty of leisure fields that can be used for baseball, and because it’s a neutral site. It is also an opportunity to expose one of the nation’s influential cultural centers to baseball, as the UA hopes to market the game to a national audience. Over the next few months, all of Uplantica will have the chance to fall in love with baseball too.

The game of baseball has existed since at least the middle of the last century in varying forms. Nobody can be quite sure where it came from, or who invented it, and that’s part of its mystical charm. In the pubs and in the bleachers, a neophyte baseball enthusiast hears interesting theories. Gregory, a middle aged man from outside of Kalico, relayed his uncle’s familial legend of sitting personally with Professor Walter Tarvey at that riverboat bar as he drew up the rules and field of play on a cocktail napkin not unlike the ones we sloshed our own beers onto as we swapped lore late into the evening. I did not have the heart to tell him that tiny paper cocktail napkins were likely not a common product in those days. The next afternoon I met a young but well traveled baseball devotee named Nia who nonchalantly explained that the game has always existed. “It’s eternal, the game ebbs and flows,” she told me. “But it never ends.”

Over at least the last two decades, touring teams have brought their own professional athletes from town to town to exhibit the game to ever growing crowds. Now, for the first time, teams have been gathered into an organized league, set to play a schedule spanning the entire summer, with games taking place daily. Instead of traveling the countryside playing exhibition games from town to town, teams will now be permanently based in a home stadium, and will travel for half of their games throughout the season. Instead of heated debates between players, coaches, and fans about which team has won the most games and which player has knocked in the most runs, every pitch of every game will be recorded for posterity, and a definitive champion will be crowned this fall. All the while, fans will be able to follow their favorite teams and players live at the ballpark, on the radio, and in the papers. The UA has teams the cities of Tiny Sea, Deerborn, Redwood, Northsouth, Platte, Lia Kompos, Taawa, Delle, Roland, Cherricaw, Prissley, and Railey.

Many visitors to Amblint over the last month made new friends that they may never have crossed paths with had the Uplantic Pact never been signed twenty six years ago this summer, freeing the continent and allowing things like professional baseball to exist. Many can attest to the uniting and healing powers of baseball. Though baseball is just now getting organized on a major national level, the game already has plenty of dedicated fans; people who have waited every year for their favorite teams to make a stop close enough to go see a game. Some fans took their love of the game further. After two summers of following Bert Milner’s Baseball Kings around the Orestric coast, my new friend Nia believes that baseball is going to save us all. “This game is beautiful. The players round the bases, and they come back home, just like the sunshine in the summertime or the moon at night. The object of the game is to come back home. This land is everyone’s. Once all those people out there have this beautiful game in their lives, this country’s going to be alright, I tell you.”

The game and the nation are young, but they were born of deep history. Baseball is new, but somehow familiar. Natural. Rhythms of the Uplantic land seem a part of this game. Ancient rivalries are renewed on the ball field, away from the battlefield, to the delight of young and old. Baseball is a sport that requires vision, cunning, speed, strength, finesse, and dedication. In concert, these qualities lead to success over nine innings. Likewise, when the qualities and talents of all the colors and shapes and sizes of people across Uplantica come together to build a future, success is inevitable. In many ways, the story of the birth of the game of baseball parallels the story of the dawning of the new age of civilization and cooperation in Uplantica.

My introduction to baseball during this month of spring training has me hooked on strikeouts, home runs, and double plays. I’ll be watching as the action unfolds this summer across the cities of the UA. Time will tell if the nation will come to love the game the way I do, but I’d say the outlook is bright.