Haesanite National League

Haesanite National League

해산 야구 리그
Abbreviation	HNL
Formation	1914
Founded at	Suyang, Haesan
Type	Baseball League
Headquarters	Suyang, Haesan
Website	hnl.hn

The Haesanite National League (해산 야구 리그) is the top flight of Haesanite baseball, founded in 1914 and held continuously since 1970. 32 teams compete for the Astral Cup, the national championship of Haesanite baseball. Two teams are relegated to the Second League at the conclusion of each season, and replaced with the champion and runner-up of the Second League.

League Structure

Since 2010, the National League has been comprised of 32 teams spread across two conferences, the Haesan Conference and the Commonwealth Conference, each with four 4-team divisions. For scheduling purposes, each division has a partner division based on geographic proximity (see table). These pairs of partner divisions are called regions, and the teams in each region will play each other over the course of a season. The team with the best record in each division will advance to the playoffs, while the worst team in each division and the next two teams with the worst record in each conference will enter the relegation playoffs.

Playoff Structure

The team with the best record in the regular season in each division qualifies for a spot in the Astral Cup Playoffs. The qualifying teams in each conference are seeded from one to four depending on their records, with the one seed playing the four seed and the two seed playing the three seed in the Conference Semifinals. The Conference Semifinal rounds are a best-of-three series, alternating games home and away with the higher seeded team gaining home field advantage in the series. The Conference Finals see the winners of the Conference Semifinals face off in a best-of-five series, also alternating games home and away with the higher seeded team gaining home field advantage. The winners of the pennants in the Haesan Conference and the Commonwealth Conference face off in the best-of-seven Astral Series for the Astral Cup, with the team with the better record playing games 1, 2, 5, and 7 at home.

Region	HC Division	CC Division
Southwest	Bay	Metro
Southern Coast	South	Coastal
Central	Plains	Valley
North	Mountain	Gulf

Tiebreaks

The tiebreak structure for determining seeding if teams have equivalent records is as follows:

1. Head-to-head record
2. Inter-division record
3. Inter-region record
4. Inter-conference record
5. Run differential
6. Random chance

If the tie for home field is being decided amongst teams within the same conference, but in different divisions, omit #2 and #3. If the tie is being broken across conferences, omit #4 as well.

Relegation Playoff Structure

Six teams in each conference, the worst team in each division and the next two teams with the worst record, enter the relegation challenge. The two teams in each conference with the worst records go straight to the second round, while the other 8 teams compete in the first round. At the end of the playoffs, two teams will be relegated to the Second League.

First Round

The four teams in each conference competing in the first round are seeded according to their record, and the two teams with the better record get home field advantage for the whole of a three-game series against their paired team. The winning team is safe from relegation, while the losing team proceeds to the second round.

Second Round

The losers of the first round and the two teams with the worst records in each conference are re-seeded, and play a best-of-three at the home field of the team with the better record. As in the first round, the teams that win the series are safe, while those who lose progress to the third round.

Third Round

The losers in the second round from conference are reseeded, so that the team with the better record in each conference plays the team with the worse record in the other conference. The third round is a best-of-three series played at a neutral site determined by lottery. The loser of each of the third round series are relegated.

Scheduling

Each team plays 8 games (4 home, 4 away) against each of its three divisional rivals, 6 games against their four regional opponents (3 home, 3 away), and 4 games against their twelve non-divisional conference opponents (2 home, 2 away). Additionally, teams play one three game series against half of their twelve non-regional non-conference opponents, where the teams are assigned randomly, and home-field for those series is assigned semi-randomly so that each team has the same number of home and away games each season. This means that each team plays 24 inter-division games, 24 inter-regional (but not inter-divisional) games, 48 inter-conference (but not inter-divisional) games, and 18 games against opposite conference opponents not in their region, for a total of 114 regular season games. The season usually starts in April and ends in August, with playoffs starting in September and stretching into October.

HNL Draft

Every year, talented amateur and university players declare for the HNL Draft, held in February every year. Each HNL team is entitled to one pick in the first three rounds, starting with the two newly promoted teams, where the Second League champion gets the first overall pick, followed by the Second League runner-up. The draft then proceeds through the non-relegated HNL teams in order of worst record to best record in the prior season. At least 100 players are selected in the first phase of the draft, as three rounds of this selection order proceed, followed by at least four compensatory picks for teams who had players forced into retirement by injury or teams that had picks voided by relegation. This first phase is followed by a second phase of four rounds, where the 30 Second League teams get to draft players from the remaining talent pool. Those not drafted in the first two phases are free to sign with any team in the league ladder. Rights to draft picks may be freely traded; however, if a newly promoted team had traded away their 4th-7th round draft picks while still in the Second League, those picks do not transfer to the first three, and the team will be awarded compensatory picks during that round instead. The same is true of newly relegated teams; their HNL draft picks are not converted to Second League picks, but rather the team holding those picks will be awarded compensation picks in the first three rounds instead.

History

1914-1935: Origins

Baseball had been played in Haesan from the late 19th century, when factory workers found the pastime more accessible than the cricket favored by the wealthy colonial elite. As a result, as with association football, rivalries between factory teams drove most of baseball's early popularity in Haesan. Soon formalized city-based leagues started to pop up, and eventually the governing associations of these leagues would form all-star teams and compete against the best from other cities. In 1914, the leaders of the city-wide associations of Suyang, Anfa, Sinju, Hyangsan, Anmi, and Jeonyu met to formalize rules about these competitions, and the Haesan National League was born out of these discussions.

This move galvanized the interest in baseball, as new stadiums could be financed with the revenues from formalized ball clubs, and lay viewership of baseball games increased as a result. During the First Commonwealth, as Haesanites gained more access to the wealth from its manufacturing and ports after the ouster of the colonial government, going to the ballpark became a popular middle class recreational activity. The 1920s saw a burst of power hitting that made the sport faster paced and more exciting than its alternatives, further driving interest in the game.

1936-1962: Merger and Government Support

Baseball exploded in popularity during the Free Republic, driven in part by widespread coverage of the game over radio and eventually television.

In 1926, the Haesan Baseball Organization also was a popular baseball league, and in the mid 1930s as the economy turned south, the leagues decided that they could not withstand the economic competition and decided to merge. Condensing the Baseball Organization's teams that were in the same markets, the HNL expanded from 6 teams to 10. After the April Coup in 1942, military rule came to Haesan, and the government decided that sports fandom was a useful tool to keep the populace happy and less concerned with politics. As a result, the government heavily funded the HNL, and financed the construction of new stadiums, investment in domestically manufactured equipment to world-class standards, and financed the HNL All-Star team to represent Haesan at international competitions. As a result, during the reign of the Free Republic, baseball became akin to a national sport, with a lot of pride and energy going into supporting its growth.

1963-1970: HNL during the Great War

However, with the Darya-Slokasian invasion in 1963, the energy came coming to a crashing halt. The 1963 HNL season was suspended, and after Haesan was leveled by 3 years of fighting, the league was unable to immediately restart. The Maximusian provisional government had made infrastructure reconstruction its primary priority, and only in 1970 was Haesan re-developed enough to make it feasible for the league to resume. Opening Day of 1970 was widely regarded as one of the key moments in Haesan's reconstruction, and was closely followed by the start of Maximusian plans to return Haesan to self-governing status.

1970-1985: Rebuilding and Reforming

As Lagarde came back to power in 1972, he once again made baseball a policy priority. The first expansion of the HNL took place in 1973 bumping the league up to 16 teams, and a major rules overhaul was announced alongside it, introducing the baseball league system and the unique promotion and relegation system that is critical to modern Haesanite baseball. This autocratic era also saw major regulations put in place to crack down on performance enhancing drugs, as over a dozen players were arrested in 1983 on suspicion of drug use, and the result was a drastic reduction in offensive play due to fear of blowback. Somewhat quelling this "dead-ball era" was the fact that bans on rosin and other pitching aids were also enforced in the name of "Haesanite respectability." The early 80s saw a sharp decline in viewership numbers as fans left for intense rivalries in association football, which was gaining in popularity at this time.

1986-2011: Expansion Era and Cultural Shifts

Baseball players in the HNL often engage with the crowd, and fan chants are common. Here, a player for the Gyeongseong Gulls hypes up fans.

However, democratization in October 1985 incidentally led to the development of a baseball culture unique to Haesan. Despite the harsher regulations on substances than most of its peer leagues, players still found ways to show their personal flair, and a fan culture developed as a result. In the late 80s and early 90s, bat-flipping became widespread, and fan chants developed as fan clubs organized cheers to support their favorite players. Starting in the late 90s, official cheer squads started to be formed by the baseball clubs, and by 2005, basically every club in the league had one. Teams also developed increasingly complex traditions and events in order to keep fan engagement high. Additionally, an All-Star Game and home-run competition has been held since 2001 over the winter holiday season in one of Haesan's three indoor stadiums for some off-season entertainment.

These reforms to the culture of the game have made Haesanite baseball far more relaxed and fan-centered than some of its peer leagues like in Xiomera or the Slokais Islands. In Haesan, the fan reaction was immensely positive, and the HNL reacted by instigating successive waves of expansion. In 1990, 8 more teams were added, bringing the league to 24. Then, in 2010, 8 more were added, bringing the total to the current 32 teams. This expansion of the league, its unique style, and its rapid growth in popularity over this period led the HNL to develop a passionate following in some of the other nations in the IDU.

2012-present: A Global HNL

While foreign players have been routinely playing in the HNL since the 1980s, in recent years, this has become the norm. It is not odd to see teams just above the roster cap for the 50% of Haesanite players they are required to register. The league's growth and increasing popularity has led to the resurgence of HNL All-Stars doing traveling tours, and occasionally, HNL games being scheduled in foreign countries. In 2019, Eirian bank Rōš ut Bernei made history as the first foreign company to sponsor a HNL team.

Teams

Division	Team	City	Stadium	Capacity	First Season	Current Spell	Last Cup
Haesan Conference
Bay	Atlas Supernova	Seoyeon, Sinhan	Atlas Park	28,963	2010	2017–	—
	GM Navigators	Hanyeong, Sinhan	Global Maritime Park	43,388	1936	1936–	2005
	Seollim Sol	Suyang, Suyang	Seollim Sky Dome	62,140	1990	1992–	2001
	Sinju Ghosts	Sinju, Sinhan	Suri Motors Field	55,673	1914	1914–	2021
Mountain	Anfa Alouettes	Anfa, Anfa	Delaporte Arena	42,670	1973	1973–	1978
	Cheonpung Mountaineers	Sanri, Maehwa	Cheonpung Park	37,197	1936	1988–	—
	Mirae Lions	Levesque, Northlands	Mirae Financial Stadium	51,271	1973	1977–	1994
	Seorae Frost	Haseon, Seocheon	Seorae Park	23,991	2019	2019–	—
Plains	AT Lunas	Junyeol, Haebam	Astra Telecom Field	26,496	2010	2010–	—
	Haeyang Gulls	Gyeongseong, Ryujang	Haeyang Field	47,199	1936	1995–	2000
	Hwagang Regents	Hwagang, Hwagang CR	Haesan National Field	52,010	1973	1973–	1952
	Montclair Lightning	Lemonnier, Lemonnier	Montclair Park	28,283	1990	2001–	—
South	AM Ironmen	Bridgeport, Northern Maritimes	Air Maritimes Field	35,662	1990	1993–	—
	GBC Aviators	Anmi, Namhae	Gwanli Boheom Park	43,979	1914	1914–	1982
	Gwangbok Hawks	Hapyeol, Imyu	Gwangbok Field	26,174	2019	2019–	—
	SBS Towers	Jeonyu, Imyu	SBS Stadium	49,812	1914	1981–	2019
Commonwealth Conference
Coastal	Rōš ut Bernei Eagles	Yeocheon, Namhae	Rōš ut Bernei Park	34,298	1936	1975–	2017
	Saerom Rockets	Anmi, Namhae	Saerom Park	39,455	1990	2002–	2024
	Suryu Crescent	Sinju, Sinhan	Suryu Stadium	43,898	1990	1990–	—
	Suyang Pearls	Suyang, Suyang	Seollim Sky Dome	62,140	1914	2017–	1980
Gulf	Anfa Stars	Anfa, Anfa	Star Stadium	57,884	1914	1914–	2022
	Bulsajo Polar Bears	Myeongsa, Northlands	Bulsajo Stadium	20,086	2021	2021–	—
	Fontenay Vintners	Varenne, Vernier	Fontenay Field	25,339	2022	2022–	—
	Suri Ironclads	Anfa, Anfa	Suri Heavy Industry Park	60,070	1973	1977–	1981
Metro	Geumjin Gondoliers	Seowon, Sugang	Geumjin Field	32,480	2010	2012–	—
	Haebyeon Tide	Munseong, Namhae	Haebyeon Field	41,283	1990	1997–	2003
	HS Light	Suyang, Suyang	HS Entertainment Field	48,761	1990	1999–	2010
	Seongwon Laurels	Ashley, Namhae	Seongwon Park	23,659	2023	2023–	—
Valley	Geonseong Armory	Apseong, Sugang	Geonseong Park	38,682	2010	2018–	—
	JS Jade	Jeongseon, Maehwa	Jeongseok Field	21,092	2020	2023–	—
	Jinsu Blossoms	Hyangsan, Sugang	Jinsu Stadium	55,129	1914	1983–	2008
	Narae Rapids	Imae, Eungang	Narae Park	34,973	1990	2004–	2015