COSMIC BASEBALL ASSOCIATION Annual Report 2001-2002

Dear Members & Friends of the Cosmic Baseball Association,
The past year proved to be a time full of transition and change at the Cosmic Baseball Association. A consolidation of the website essentially reunited most of the files dispersed during the 2000 Diaspora. A brief and not entirely successful partnership with some outside investors provided the Cosmic Baseball Association with some very useful e-commerce experience. A robust and offensive-driven, homerun-laden cosmic playing season gave cosmic baseball fans a lot of excitement. A vigorous series of Personal Cosmic Baseball Games provided additional virtual entertainment.
A number of new Cosmic Baseball Player Plates were issued during the season. A revamping of the Cosmic Baseball Team Roster Index was completed. Minor upgrades to our game and adminsitrative software were performed and a new Cosmic Plate Tracking database was installed and moved into production.
Membership levels grew modestly. Staffing levels at the Cosmic Baseball Association and at the Cosmic Baseball Research Alliance (COBRA) did not change. There was a subtraction from and an addition to the Board of Directors.
The upcoming year looks like it will also have its share of change as the Cosmic Baseball Association enters its 21st season. There are plans to overhaul and upgrade the Cosmic Baseball Player/Team database (CBASE) . We can look forward to another exciting season of cosmic baseball when 24 cosmic teams in three leagues take to the cosmic playing fields next March.
I would like to thank all of the staff, associates, members and visitors of the Cosmic Baseball Association for making this past year so enjoyable. I hope you all will join me in looking forward to another very enjoyable season.

Catch you later,

Executive Director
COSMIC BASEBALL ASSOCIATION
flashblack@cosmicbaseball.com

CBA Annual Report, Page 2

Elka Stein
Chairperson

The Board of Directors meets at least three times a year in various locations. Refer to the Calendar for upcoming meetings.

Major actions by the Board in 2001

Aproved funds for website consolidation

Aproved the registration of the cosmicbaseball.net domain name

Approved formation of partnership with outside investors

Affirmed new policy making membership dues required

Approved 12-month renewal of contract with IDS for statistical data service

CBA Annual Report, Page 3

In June the Board of Directors of the Cosmic Baseball Association authorized a revamping of the membership program and created a three-tier membership structure. In the process the time-honored tradition of making annual membership dues optional was discarded. Provisions were made to "grandfather" some of the membership and other exceptions were made on a case by case basis.
The reorganization of the membership program was coincident and directly related to the Cosmic Baseball Association's partnership with a group of outside investors who thought the Cosmic Baseball Association had some unrealized commercial potential. In addition to selling T-Shirts and baseball caps, "membership" became another product to be marketed and sold.
When the brief partnership with the outside investors ended at the end of 2001 the Board of Directors began to reconsider the membership dues requirement issue. As of this writing no decision to make any changes has been announced. It is likely however that a return to the "optional" dues program will occur during the 2002 season.
Membership increased by 3% during 2001 and the number of members currently stands at 2,704. The membership division fielded just over 10,000 requests for information during the year. Nine percent of the requests came from members.

CBA Annual Report, Page 4

The past year proved to be a tumultuous one for the Cosmic Baseball Association's website operations. As the year kicked off the website was in the midst of the repercussions associated with the 2000 Diaspora which had resulted in the dispersal of the files associated with the website. Up to seven hosting services were at one time utilized during the Winter and early Spring.
In April, as a result of a business partnership with outside investors the website was mostly consolidated at one hosting service where the domain name cosmicbaseball.com was registered. In October the Cosmic Baseball Association registered the domain name cosmicbaseball.net and acquired additional hosting services from another vendor. As a result of these events the website now has over 320 megabytes of available storage space spread across two vendors.
A variety of new plates including seven new cosmic baseball player plates were created and published at the website. Over 1700 plates and thousands of graphic and sound files utilize approximately 70 megabytes of storage space on Internet-based servers.
Major overhauls were undertaken and completed on the plates associated with the Casey at the Bat section, the Journal of the Cosmic Baseball Association plates and the Cosmic Team Roster plates.
Visitor traffic to the Cosmic Baseball Association's website increased 16% over the prior twelve months. This increase occurred despite a significant loss of traffic because of vendor service problems and the migration/transition to the larger hosting services during the Spring and Summer. Approximately 15% of the daily traffic at the website is accessing a redirection link. Goals for the coming year include trying to reach 1,000 daily unique visitors.
The following tables detail and summarize website visitor activity for the 12 months ended November 30, 2001:

Source: IDStats (December 1, 2000 - November 30, 2001)

CBA Annual Report, Page 5

1. The financial situation of the Cosmic Baseball Association is currently stable.

2. Because the single most important commodity we transact for is basic time, and since the value of time fluctuates, sometimes radically, it is difficult to accurately assemble realistic budgets that will conform to reality over any given time.

3. Costs associated with the Cosmic Baseball Association's website operations are expected to increase dramatically over the next 12 months from $30 to $86 per month.

4. The primary source of money flowing into the Cosmic Baseball Association comes from membership dues, outside funding sources and random contributions from friends.

5. For a ninth-month period of time during the fiscal year the Cosmic Baseball Association entered into a partnership with an outside investment group that wanted to sell merchandise from the Cosmic Baseball Association's website. This business partnership enabled the Cosmic Baseball Association to consolidate its website and underwrite the expense of additional website file storage space. The business partnership was terminated at the beginning of December. At that time the Cosmic Baseball Association took on the expense of the hosting costs. No direct profit or loss was experienced as a result of the business partnership that was terminated in December.

6. A detail of income and expenses is available upon request by sending an email to the Executive Director.

CBA Annual Report, Page 6

January 26
Winter Meetings
Boston, Massachusetts

February 11
Winter Rookie Draft

March 15
Ides of March
Regular Cosmic Season Begins
Wonderland Warriors @ Paradise Pisces

June 28
Spring Meetings
Shanghai, China

July 20
Summer Rookie Draft

September 23
Regular Cosmic Season Ends

October 1
Subleague Series Begins

October 9
CBA's 21st Anniversary

October 13
Fall Meetings
Pacifica, California

November 28
Thanksgiving
Cosmic Universal Series Begins

CBA Annual Report, Page 7

Other Annual Reports

2005 Annual Report
2004 Annual Report
2003 Annual Report
2002 Annual Report
2001 Annual Report
2000 Annual Report