As expected, the first block of The Champions League was a head-to-head in-division brawl with little separation among most teams. Most teams, not all.

In the National Conference, Ancaster entered the season as the pre-season favorite to win the top seed and advance to the playoffs with an automatic berth and promotion. The first block did nothing to disuade that as the Royals went a staggering 20-4, taking a 7 game lead over Space City. Other early favorites San Francisco and Tuscany, floundered and also 7 and 8 games back of Ancaster respectively. “It’s early,” as they say, but that kind of dominance is going to be tough to overtake. Harold Ramirez may not hit .450 all season, but absolutely tore up block 1 at that pace to be the early batting average leader by a healthy margin.

In the Premier conference, another pre-season favorite Shoreline emerged with a 2 game lead over Arizona and the top record at 16-10. Ohio also posted a 14-10 record for the early narrow lead in the Mays division. Eight teams are all within four games of Shoreline. Nobody is out of it and a pitched battle should continued all season long.

The biggest early surprise is the DiMaggio’s leader, the Galesburg Wizards who shook off youth and pre-season predictions that looked past them to take the division lead with a 14-10 mark. Nolan Gorman leads the Champions with 12 bombs, including a staggering 6 against lefties.

Despite Ancaster’s early lead, the National Conference battle for the play-in tournament should be barnburner with eight teams within 2 games of each other after Block 1.

Some surprising stats: Tuscany’s JD Martinez struck out a whopping 37 times, 1 more than Ancaster superstar Aaron Judge. Neither are among the early leaders in Home Runs. Wheeling’s Ruiz channelled his inner Rickey Henderson to steal 20 bases in just 24 games. While he isn’t likely to maintain a 150-steal pace, a 100-steal season could be in reach, which is like taking a time travel machine back to the mid 1980s (oh I wish I could… I still had hair and a six pack not named IPA).

On to block two, where teams go outside the division to mix it up with the other half. If Ancaster can stay hot against the DiMaggio, this could be over before Halloween!