Italian Baseball continues path towards Franchise System

On Sunday the brass of Italian Baseball, headed by president Fraccari met in Tirrenia to celebrate the fifth year of the Baseball Academy in the city and to talk about the future of the Italian Baseball League. Fraccari briefed them about the plans regarding the professional league, which is supposed to start in 2010 (see also the interview with John Genzale). Major League Baseball was happy about the first drafts and is expected to approve the cooperation in November or December.

The goal is to have a professional league of about eight to ten teams without promotion and relegation. Each franchise would consist of an IBL-team, a second-tier team and an Under-21 squad, similar to the role model MLB with their different minor league levels. 2009 is going to be a big year for Italian Baseball, as interested clubs have to begin transforming their organizations into the new system.

At their meeting on Sunday, the federation also announced a few more changes for the 2009 season. The league opens to players, born in the European Union, but teams still have to play with at least five ASI players (players developed in Italy) in the lineup. The next season is supposed to start on April 9 and the games will be scheduled from Thursday to Saturday. There also isn’t any more a break in the schedule between the end of the regular season and the beginning of the semi-final round, like it was the case this summer. They also talked about the IBAF tiebreaker rule and a visible twelve-second clock to speed up the game.