Euro League Baseball (ELB) was a

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Modern professional ...

league League or The League may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Leagues'' (band), an American rock band * ''The League'', an American sitcom broadcast on FX and FXX about fantasy football Sports * Sports league * Rugby league, full contact footba ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

founded by the European Association of Professional Baseball (EAPB) which played a single season in 2016. The winner of the ELB was awarded the ''Gregory Halman Trophy''. ELB played its inaugural season in 2016 with three teams:

Draci Brno Draci Brno (English: Brno Dragons) is a baseball team from Brno, Czech Republic. The team plays in the Czech Extraliga The Czech Extraliga ( cs, Extraliga ledního hokeje, ELH) is the highest-level ice hockey league in the Czech Republic. It w ...

Haar Disciples The München-Haar Disciples (), officially named "Disciples München-Haar e.V. von 1990", is a baseball club founded in 1990 in Haar, a suburb of Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of ...

and

Buchbinder Legionäre Regensburg Buchbinder is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Bernhard Buchbinder (1849–1922), Austro-Hungarian actor, journalist and writer * David Buchbinder (born 1947), American academic * Chaim Buchbinder (born 1943), Israeli basketball ...

. The league's only championship was awarded to

Organization

EAPD held a 60% stake in Euro League Baseball Ltd. which is the operator of the EBL and holds all naming and media rights as well as all partnership and sponsor contracts regarding Euro League Baseball. EAPB President Wim van den Hurk was the CEO of Euro League Baseball Ltd.

Teams

2016 season

The inaugural ELB season in 2016 was contested by three teams:

. Each team played a total of 8 regular season games (4 at home and 4 away) between April and July.

Amsterdam Baseball

A team called ''Amsterdam Baseball'' was founded with the purpose to compete in ELB, and to be run by the league. The backbone of the team was supposed to be players from

Amsterdam Pirates Amsterdam Pirates is a Dutch baseball and softball organization based in Amsterdam. It was founded as an expansion of the football club SV Rap on 17 February 1959 by Loek Loevendie. In the first years it was known as the RAP Pirates, but after ...

, but also some previously retired players like

Dirk van 't Klooster Dirk Gijsbertus van 't Klooster (born 23 April 1976 in Amsterdam) is a Dutch baseball player. Van 't Klooster represented the Netherlands at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney where he and his team became fifth. Four years later at the 2004 Sum ...

and Chris Mowday. However, when the season was already well underway, Amsterdam Baseball had to withdraw from the league due to pressure from the European and Dutch baseball federations. This left the league with only three teams for its inaugural season.

Standings

References

External links

* * {{Professional Baseball Euro League Baseball Sports leagues established in 2015 Sports leagues disestablished in 2016 Defunct baseball leagues 2015 establishments in Europe 2016 disestablishments in Europe Defunct sports leagues in Europe