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Leslie Mann, a popular ex-professional player from the USA, led the promotion of Baseball in his country with the founding of the National Baseball Congress (NBC) in 1931. The NBC took the first steps towards recognizing Baseball as an Olympic sport.
In 1935 Takiso Matsumoto, professor at Meji University in Japan, invited an American team selected by a committee composed of Leslie Mann, Avery Brundage, Lyman Bingham and Judge Mederick Horfman. This was an historic event because for the first time, a Baseball game was broadcasted by radio from one continent to another.
The Baseball exhibition in 1936 at the Berlin Olympic Games was an enormous success as 125,000 spectators (still a record attendance at a Baseball game) filled the Olympic Stadium to watch a game between two teams from the U.S. This demonstrated to the sport’s leading figures that the future of Baseball depended on its international impact.
In August 1938, the first “Baseball World Cup” was held in London with the participation of just two teams, the United States and Great Britain, who played a series of five games starting on August 13th. The British team won four of the five games. In order to consolidate and promote international competition, the International Baseball Federation (IBF) was formed and Leslie Mann was named its first General Secretary and Treasurer.
The following year, the second Baseball World Cup included the USA, Nicaragua and the host country, Cuba.
In 1940, despite the Second World War, seven teams took part in the third Baseball World Cup. The competition was held in Havana, CUB, where the next two Baseball World Cups would also take place. During this Championship, delegates from the affiliated countries met to elect two Cubans: Laureano Prado Clark and Jaime Mariné, as the International Federation’s Secretary-Treasurer and first President, respectively.
At the 1944 Congress, held in Caracas, VEN, delegates elected Jorge Reyes of Mexico, as President and his compatriot Gustavo de la Torre as Secretary-Treasurer. The Federation changed its name to the Federación Internacional de Béisbol Amateur (FIBA).
According to the rules of that time, the new FIBA President was to be elected from the country hosting the Baseball World Cup. Therefore, the new president in 1945 was Pablo Morales of Venezuela.
In 1947, the FIBA Congress entrusted the organization of the next Baseball World Cup to Nicaragua and the presidency was passed to Chale Pereira Ocampo, while Ernesto Ruiz Morales was elected Secretary-Treasurer.
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