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The year is 2012.
Mark "Freckles" Carter, a Physical Education teacher at North Gwinnett High School in Georgia, develops a version of baseball that can be played indoors as an activity, dubbing it "Gymball". He soon finds that owing to the small size of the school gym and the hitting power of some of his students, Gymball is an incredibly offense-heavy game, allowing for better coordination in the outfield. Owing to a lack of required equipment, the new variation of baseball spreads to other schools and recreational programs in the Gwinnett County area. Then to Atlanta proper. Then to the entire state of Georgia. Then to the entire southeastern region. City leagues are formed, amateur teams are organized, and the sport evolves, steadily attracting a larger and larger fanbase...
The year is 2024.
Gymball has grown significantly, becoming a large recreational sport across the entire nation, picking up considerable steam in Canada and the Northern U.S., where it is an ideal winter sport. Some high schools and colleges even field teams. In the case of the colleges, some build specific gyms for them, with many having outfields only going out to somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 feet. This slightly different version becomes known as "200 Foot Baseball", commonly abbreviated to 200Ball.
In 2024, with both variations of indoor baseball booming in popularity post-pandemic, a group of businessmen meet to formalize the rules of the game, standardize the playing field dimensions, and organize a proper professional league to kick off that November. In the end, with franchise fees being paid and a major fast food chain agreeing to sponsor, a league is formed, with 12 teams taking part in the inaugural season: Atlanta, Calgary, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, San Jose, Seattle, and Vancouver.
Welcome to the intense world of the Raising Cane's Ultimate Ball League.
Old logo (2024-2029):
MOST TITLES2025: Carolina Brothers
2026: Los Angeles Breakers
2027: Los Angeles Breakers
2028: Los Angeles Breakers
2029: Houston Comets
2030: Houston Comets
2031: Miami Corals
2032: Carolina Brothers
Los Angeles Breakers (3 Titles)
Carolina Brothers, Houston Comets (2 Titles)
Miami Corals (1 Title)
Last edited by ThisIsFine (10/09/2024 9:46 pm)
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what are the rules? Excited to see what this is all about!
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H-Town1141 wrote:
what are the rules? Excited to see what this is all about!
They will be explained in a coming post that also introduces our teams!
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Very interesting (and unique) sounding concept! Now I'm also craving some Cane's sauce, which is cruel because I live in Northern California and there are none around here. Screw you man. But on a more serious note, I love the idea of a modern sponsored league, that is something very real that I don't think many have done on these boards. Looking forward to what you've got.
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Steelman wrote:
Very interesting (and unique) sounding concept! Now I'm also craving some Cane's sauce, which is cruel because I live in Northern California and there are none around here. Screw you man. But on a more serious note, I love the idea of a modern sponsored league, that is something very real that I don't think many have done on these boards. Looking forward to what you've got.
It was mainly inspired by sponsored Twenty20 cricket leagues in Australia and India, as are a few other aspects of this league's design, but hey, startup money's gotta come from somewhere lmao
Last edited by ThisIsFine (7/18/2024 11:54 pm)
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AUTHOR'S/SIMMER'S NOTE:
1. I take no credit for the logos used in this series, most are modified from other sources.
2. It might be a good idea to suspend your disbelief going forward. This story about indoor baseball isn't exactly grounded in reality
It was decided that the league, being played in arenas, would be dedicated to the 200Ball indoor baseball variant already widely played in the NCAA. This variant uses the following dimensions, standardized across the league:
Left and right lines: 200 ft.
Left and right fields: 215 ft.
Left-center and right-center: 220 ft.
Center field: 225 ft.
Wall height: 50 ft.
All in all, a recipe for big offense.
As for teams, the UBL was divided into two conferences, Western and Eastern, with two four-team divisions each, each named for a famous ballplayer of the past. The teams each had two main colors and an "icon" that would be used as their official logo. The teams, their colors, and their home arenas were as follows:
MAYS DIVISION
British Columbia Beasts (Dark Gray/Dark Mint, Rogers Arena)
Calgary Cowboys (Butterfly Blue/Brown, Scotiabank Saddledome)
Portland Beavers (Dark Green/Yellow-Green, Moda Center)
Seattle Ravens (Plum Purple/Black, Climate Pledge Arena)
ROBINSON DIVISION
Bay Area Sea Lions (Navy Blue/Deep Orange, SAP Center)
Dallas Demons (Crimson/Deep Orange, American Airlines Center)
Las Vegas Blackjacks (Red/Black, T-Mobile Arena)
Los Angeles Breakers (Bright Blue/Gold, Crypto.com Arena)
RUTH DIVISION
Chicago Blazers (Orange-Red/Black, United Center)
New York Pigeons (Gray/Black, UBS Arena)
Philadelphia Ringers (Dark Gold/Dark Royal Blue, Wells Fargo Center)
Toronto Huskies (Silver/Royal Blue, Scotiabank Arena)
COBB DIVISION
Atlanta Aliens (Bright Green/Black, State Farm Arena)
Carolina Brothers (Teal/Navy Blue, PNC Arena)
Houston Comets (Purple/Silver, Toyota Center)
Miami Corals (Coral/Egyptian Blue, Amerant Bank Arena)
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Is it just like normal baseball with a big wall?
Also if this is a branded league, I’d love to see some sort of tie in with the team and sponsor. For example, why couldn’t the huskies be the retrievers? Demons might fly with a devil logo, but I don’t know a company that would want their logo next to a pentagram. Still excited to see where this heads, though!
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H-Town1141 wrote:
Is it just like normal baseball with a big wall?
Also if this is a branded league, I’d love to see some sort of tie in with the team and sponsor. For example, why couldn’t the huskies be the retrievers? Demons might fly with a devil logo, but I don’t know a company that would want their logo next to a pentagram. Still excited to see where this heads, though!
..Yeah. And a lot of homers.
Idk, having the sponsor tie in to the teams themselves seems kinda tacky.
And I might change the demons logo next season, it's not very visible.
Still, glad you like it, hope you can enjoy rooting for the Comets!
Last edited by ThisIsFine (7/13/2024 6:34 pm)
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I really like where you're headed with this! this version of baseball seems like it would be a lot of fun to play. the league logo is solid, and I like the use of pink(s) as its main color(s) - very underused imo
I'm a big fan of the idea of the team logos as single-color icons. A lot of it reminds me of blaseball, in a good way - maybe especially chicago, since the firefighters used the fire emoji, which is very similar to the blazers' icon. unfortunately, I don't think the execution here works. I have to imagine that in-universe, the league is going that route to provide a sense of cohesion and brand unity, and I'm not getting that at all. also, some of your icons are very detailed - seattle's in particular is too complex to even be a logo, let alone an icon - while some of them are extremely simple, like vegas, which is almost certainly not going to be protected by copyright. I think this is a byproduct of you cribbing from a lot of different sources, which is fine, but the thing about icons like these is that they're pretty easy to create just by finding an image you like and tracing it. I'd recommend at least giving that a shot and seeing what you can come up with for some of these teams
sorry for that wall of text, but I want to see this league live up to its full potential! that of course also means adding a boston team, so get on that
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ItDoesntMatter wrote:
I really like where you're headed with this! this version of baseball seems like it would be a lot of fun to play. the league logo is solid, and I like the use of pink(s) as its main color(s) - very underused imo
I'm a big fan of the idea of the team logos as single-color icons. A lot of it reminds me of blaseball, in a good way - maybe especially chicago, since the firefighters used the fire emoji, which is very similar to the blazers' icon. unfortunately, I don't think the execution here works. I have to imagine that in-universe, the league is going that route to provide a sense of cohesion and brand unity, and I'm not getting that at all. also, some of your icons are very detailed - seattle's in particular is too complex to even be a logo, let alone an icon - while some of them are extremely simple, like vegas, which is almost certainly not going to be protected by copyright. I think this is a byproduct of you cribbing from a lot of different sources, which is fine, but the thing about icons like these is that they're pretty easy to create just by finding an image you like and tracing it. I'd recommend at least giving that a shot and seeing what you can come up with for some of these teams
sorry for that wall of text, but I want to see this league live up to its full potential! that of course also means adding a boston team, so get on that
Yeah, some of the teams I'm less happy with, like Seattle and Dallas, will be getting new icons after season one
Also, wait a few seasons, ther'll be an expansion council ;)