| United States Baseball League | |
|---|---|
 "Our National Pastime" | |
| Predecessor | Major League Baseball |
| Type | Professional sports league |
| Headquarters | 2603 West E Street Torrington, DK, USA |
| Commissioner | Joe Torre |
The United States Baseball League is the highest professional league for organized baseball within the borders of the restored United States. It was founded by former player and manager Joe Torre.
Joe Torre, Commissioner of Baseball for the USBL. Torre, with his history as a pre-Doomsday player and manager and his role in organizing baseball leagues since the 1990's, is considered to be a link between pre-Doomsday and post-Doomsday baseball.
Background[]
Before Doomsday, the United States and Canada had been the home of Major League Baseball, the world's premier professional baseball league. The final game of the MLB was concluded on the evening of Doomsday, shortly before the bombs started dropping.
Starting in the 1990's and 2000's, former player and manager Joe Torre (a New Yorker who'd been managing the Atlanta Braves at the time of Doomsday) started travelling across post-Doomsday America, helping to set up regional baseball leagues. In 2012, he traveled to the reconstituted United States, and was invited by President Allard to begin work on a new major league to serve the communities of the restored USA. President Allard promised the backing of the US government. The result was the United States Baseball League. Torre has served as its Commissioner of Baseball since its inception.
The Teams[]
During the naming process for the original eight teams of the US Baseball League, Commissioner Torre and the managers made an intentional choice to name some of the teams after the pre-Doomsday MLB teams that had had fandoms in the areas where the new teams were being placed in order to generate both nostalgia for the old baseball league and enthusiasm for the new.
The original eight teams of the United States Baseball League were:
- The Torrington Tornadoes
- The Oregon Mariners
- The Colorado Rockies
- The Lincoln Railsplitters
- The Dakota Twins
- The Kansas Royals
- The Montana Mountaineers
- The Idaho Cowboys
The Torrington Tornadoes[]
As Commissioner Torre and the representatives from amateur regional ball clubs sat down and began devising the locations of new teams, it was quickly decided that the most natural spot for a new team would be Torrington, District of Kennedy. Torrington was the capital of the reborn nation and was reported to be the fastest-growing city in America. It was a logical choice for a new ball club.
The team was named the Tornadoes both to give it an alliterative-sounding name as well as to nod at the Great Plains' propensity towards tornadoes. The Torrington Tornadoes fandom has its biggest rivalry with the baseball club located in Newport, the USA'S second largest city: the Oregon Mariners.
The Oregon Mariners[]
When Oregon was selected by Commissioner Torre and other USBL officials to be home to its own major league ball club, it was quickly decided to name the new team the Mariners. Most baseball fans in Oregon and Washington State had been fans of the pre-Doomsday Seattle Mariners. Resurrecting the Mariners name and iconography in the same region would provide continuity and excite older baseball fans to return.
The Mariners play in Newport, Oregon, in a ballpark called Diego Segui Field that offers a spectacular background view of the new West Coast version of the Statue of Liberty that has been constructed in Newport. Besides the traditional ballpark staple foods, Segui Field also specializes in seafood snacks thanks to Newport's maritime culture.
The Colorado Rockies[]
The Colorado Rockies were organized to represent the restored US state of Colorado. The Rockies play out of Fort Collins, the state's capital and largest city. The name "Rockies" was chosen to honor the iconic mountain range that dominates the geography of Colorado and much of the regions north and south of the state.
The Lincoln Railsplitters[]
Due to their location in the state named for US President Abraham Lincoln, the Railsplitters were named for one of President Lincoln's nicknames, which hearkened back to young Abe's formative years growing up on the frontier.
The Railsplitters play at a ballpark in Coeur d'Alene. The Railsplitters' home field is officially called Railsplitters Park, but fans commonly refer to it as "the Log Cabin." The local fan culture features the tradition of fans using their arms to do the "railsplitter motion," in which they will move their arms as if they're chopping a log of wood, as a way to cheer on their team.
The Dakota Twins[]
Most residents of both Dakotas before Doomsday had been fans of the Minnesota Twins. Thus, Commissioner Torre and the local baseball representatives from the unified post-Doomsday State of Dakota agreed to name the new team the Twins in their honor. Whereas the pre-Doomsday Twins had been named for the now-destroyed cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, the post-Doomsday Twins were named for the regions of North Dakota and South Dakota which had now been unified into the singular State of Dakota.
The Kansas Royals[]
The next state to be chosen to host its own major league team was Kansas. Similar to the decision to honor (and appeal to) the surviving fanbases of the pre-Doomsday Mariners and Twins, Commissioner Torre and other league officials chose to honor the MLB team that had commanded popularity in pre-Doomsday Kansas and Missouri, the Kansas City Royals, who had been based in Kansas City, Missouri. Given the fact that both Kansas City, MO and Kansas City, KS were gone, the new franchise would be based in Dodge City, Kansas and would simply be called the Kansas Royals.
The Royals play at their home field of Buck O'Neil Stadium, named for the beloved former first baseman of the Kansas City Monarchs (the region's team in the Negro Leagues), who had later become a scout and a much-adored storyteller of baseball lore.
The Montana Mountaineers[]
The Mountaineers play at a ballpark in Billings, officially called Mountaineers Park but which fans have nicknamed "The Mountain." During ballgames, fans often cheer the team on with the fandom's signature "Mountaineers Yell."
The Montana Mountaineers have the distinction of winning the USBL's first ever World Series in October of 2013, winning 4 games in a stunning comeback after the Torrington Tornadoes won the first 3 games in the Series. Since then, Montana and Torrington tend to have something of a rivalry, though not as intense as that between Torrington fans and Oregon Mariners fans. However, the Mountaineers' biggest rival is their neighbors, the Idaho Cowboys.
The Idaho Cowboys[]
The Idaho Cowboys play at a ballpark in Dubois called the Cowboys Corral. In contrast to most baseball fandoms, the Cowboys' fans (perhaps unsurprisingly) typically wear classic cowboy hats to the ballpark rather than the baseball caps that are more typical of baseball fans. The Cowboys enjoyed a dynasty era in the late 2010's, winning the USBL World Series in 2017, 2018, and 2019.
The Wyoming Ghosts[]
The Wyoming Ghosts play at the Gillete Ballpark. The Wyoming Ghosts had been an independent team founded in 2014, formed from players rejected from the Torrington Tornadoes. After discussions of the Kootenai Grizzlies joining the USBL, it was decided to promote the Wyoming Ghosts alongside them, as they had been a well-established team at that point. The Ghosts would win second place in their inaugural World Series in 2017.
The Kootenai Grizzlies[]
The Kootenai Grizzlies were founded in the year 2013 and play in Ogren Park at Allegiance Field. Named after the sports team's name used by the University of Kootenai (before being retired in 2011), the Kootenai Grizzlies was founded in order join the USBL. They also established a rivalry with another independent team, the Absaroka Ghosts. In 2017, both teams would be accepted into the league. The Grizzlies lost to the Ghosts in 2017 but beat them in 2018.
Future Expansion[]
Commissioner Joe Torre watching the inaugural Opening Day game of the United States Baseball League, featuring a matchup between the Torrington Tornadoes and the Oregon Mariners.
It is expected that as more American survivor communities formally reunify under the steadily-growing reborn United States, the League will admit new members. Commissioner Torre has made three major comments about how this would be done:
- 1. New teams would have to be admitted in either pairs or other multiples of two, in order to keep the League membership at an even number of teams.
- 2. If the number of member teams grows high enough, the USBL will more than likely reorganize itself into format of having two constituent sub-leagues whose champions would meet in the World Series, as the MLB had done before Doomsday (with the American League and National League being the two groups within Major League Baseball).
- 3. If and when new states are admitted, Commissioner Torre has expressed a preference for promoting a currently-existing local team from that region into the USBL rather than creating new ones from scratch. "These teams have a pre-existing fanbase that it would be wise for us to tap into," stated Torre during a press conference.