2512 – 2523: Astro vs. Cosmo
 

 
With the mini merger, the Solar League is now split into two sub-leagues; the Astro League and the Cosmo League.
 
The Astro League has The Solar Six, while the Cosmo League has all of the six expansion teams (Jupiter and Mendez joined the four new teams to form the CL).
 
The regular season increased to 162 games. Each team will face their league rivals 18 times, while facing all six teams in the other league 12 times.
 
The postseason also has been expanded from 3 teams to 4 teams. Each league’s winners will face the 2nd place team for a best-of-five League Championship. The winner of these two LCS will face against each other in the prestigious Galactic Series.
 
In the first four seasons of this new era, the story was nearly identical. The Solar Six in the Astro League beat up on each other giving themselves consistent records while mixing up teams in the top two places. Meanwhile in the Cosmo League, the Jupiter Kings and the Mendez Islanders took advantage of the four expansion teams’ inexperience and finished 1-2 every year. Also, the Mendez Islanders won three straight Galactic Series titles.
 
However, the Solar League control shifted back to the Astro League, as an AL team won the next six Galactic Series titles in seven years, with the Mars Warriors winning three of them.
 
Speaking of which, the Warriors finally found their footing as they got their own Even-Year B.S. by wining the title in 2518, 2520, and 2522. In the odd-numbered years, the Warriors managed to lose in the Galactic Series, so they’re currently working on a four-year consecutive appearances. Also, they have been in the Galactic Series five times in the past six years.
 
The Kennedy Rockets became the first team from the ’12 expansion teams to win a Galactic Series title, in their 12th season.
 
Galactic Series
2500 – Ceres over Luna
2501 – Mercury over Earth
2502 – Mercury over Ceres
2503 – Earth over Mercury
2504 – Earth over Mercury
2505 – Mercury over Earth
2506 – Mercury over Venus
2507 – Luna over Earth
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2508 – Venus over Luna
2509 – Earth over Luna
2510 – Ceres over Luna
2511 – Luna over Earth
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2512 – Jupiter over Ceres
2513 – Mendez over Earth
2514 – Mendez over Ceres
2515 – Mendez over Earth
2516 – Luna over Mendez
2517 – Venus S. over. Jupiter
2518 – Mars over Saturn
2519 – Luna over Ganymede
2520 – Mars over Venus R.
2521 – Mendez over Mars
2522 – Mars over Kennedy
2523 – Kennedy over Mars
 
Hall of Fame Voting
In 2520, the Solar League had their first Hall of Fame induction, as they gave the honor to two longtime Mercury Mets, Terry Kelly and Hee-ho Kim.
 
Terry Kelly (OF) spent his entire 15-year career with the Mets, winning 6 MVPs and 4 Galactic Series titles. He was a true force of the game. He established himself as one of the top players of his generation, compiling 2,487 hits, 576 home runs, and a lifetime .309 batting average in 9,238 plate appearances.
 
Hee-ho Kim (RP) spent the majority of his career with the Mets before bouncing around with the Apollos, Belters, and Sparrows toward the end of his career. He was a five-time reliever of the year and led the league in saves in 7 seasons, finishing with a career total of 437 saves, good for the all-time lead in Solar League history.
 
In 2523, Marcio D’Ambrosio (OF) was nearly unanimously voted into the Hall of Fame with 99.2% of the vote. Even though he won only one MVP award (thanks to Kelly), he did win four Galactic Series titles. He finished with a total of 100.5 career WAR, 2,699 hits, 456 homers, and a lifetime batting line of .345/.447/.587/1.034. He played for Earth, Luna, and Kennedy throughout his career.

All-Time Standings



What's next? 
2 more expansion teams to make it a 14-team league! 
 

Glad to see Mendez doing well, not so glad to see Saturn at the bottom. Checking the list, it seems like Mendez's three-peat was the first of its kind, which is neat. The league seems to be really balanced, which is nice. Every team has made the playoffs and only three haven't won a Galactic Series yet, so fans of every team have something to cheer for.

2524: More Opportunities
 
The Solar League remained intact for 12 seasons with 12 years and the league’s popularity have skyrocketed, especially with the inner planets. Due to the massive population sizes on Earth and Mars, they were clamoring for a second team to behind. So the league added two new teams to each location, placing both of them in the Cosmo League, with the Jupiter Kings moving to the Astro League to join the Solar Six. The Kings moved to the Astro League to help ensure the two leagues were split evenly across the board geographically, so each team would have a “natural” interleague rival.
 
The two expansion teams are the following:

• PUA Emperors (Earth)
• Valles Marineris Canyons (Mars)

 
PUA Emperors
 



Origins – PUA stands for the People’s Union of Asia, a union of Eastern Asia countries that includes Japan, China, Korea, and several other surrounding countries. With the Earth Astronauts dominating North America, East Asia, with their strong baseball history, decided to come together and put up a team of their own. They elected on the name Emperors to honor their past.
 
Colors – To contrast with the blue-heavy Astronauts, the Emperors went with red, which also is the color of many Asia countries. Along with the red, they use gold as an accent color. Their logo is an ideogram of Emperor.
 
Stadium – Even in the 26th century, Tokyo is still one of the largest cities in the world and in the solar system as well, so it’s fitting that they will be playing in the latest version of the Tokyo Dome. They had to keep it old school!
 
RR9’s Notes – I tried my best to be respectful of the logo that I chose for the Emperors. I did some research on this and it seems that the symbol of Emperor is the same in Japanese and Chinese, so I went with it. But please, PLEASE tell me if this is offensive or anything like that. I will be more than happy to redo this if necessary. 
 
 
Valles Marineris Canyons
 

 
Origins – With the success the Mars Warriors have had in the past few years, more and more fans were coming out of the woodworks to throw their support behind the Warriors. It became too much for the Warriors’ stadium to handle, which had three straight seasons of sellouts, so they had turn away many fans. So these fans naturally decided to form their own team! With a couple of major investors and a backer with some cash lying around, they were able to land a team.
 
The team will be based in Bradbury, a large city that sits on the rim of the Valles Marineris, one of the largest canyons in the entire Solar System. The Grand Canyon stretches across Arizona. The Valles Mariners stretches across the entire width of theUnited States.
 
And thus, the Valles Marineris Canyons were born.
 
Colors – Western. That was the theme that the Canyons wanted to emulate. The team went with bold, rocky orange to reflect the rugged landscapes of Mars, with dark, striking purple to represent the shadows at the bottom in these canyons. The cap logo is a Western-style monogram of “MV,” even though the location’s name is Valles Marineris, as it should have been VM instead of MV. But when the team unveiled the logo, they realized their errors. Luckily, the fans loved it so much that they decided to keep it, to give the team a little character to it. And it makes for a great conversation starter. 
 
RR9’s Note – Oops.
 
Stadium – Mars is one of the few places in the solar system that was truly terraformed, so the completely outdoor stadium sits in downtown Bradbury with the outfield walls facing the canyons of Valles Marineris, and surrounded by majestic views of the rocky red landscapes of Mars. If a player hits a home run far enough, it could go all the way to the bottom of the canyon, nearly 8 kilometers down. For reference, the Grand Canyon is barely 2 kilometers deep.
 
 

Loving PUA! The red and gold balance out perfectly, and I bet that alt jersey is a thing of beauty. Asia (and especially Japan) is a hotbed of baseball, so I imagine the team will have plenty of support. The Canyons are great as well, a bit sad to see the Bradbury Rays go but that logo is stunning. The burnt orange and purple combo is awesome and the VM/MV mixup is unique and charming, very fitting for baseball. Great work!

RoughRiders9 wrote:

RR9’s Note – Oops.

My new favorite quote from a series creator ever. Lmao.

Both teams look great!