Four dollars and eighty-eight cents
The free agent registration fee is $4.88, which the league says covers the administrative cost of maintaining its membership structure. It is a small enough number to be a filter rather than a charge, and the league is explicit that this is the point: the fee is there so the free agent pool is made of committed players.
What it buys is stated. Registered free agents get priority for team placement, tryouts and the Winter Workout Program, and they pay less for all of it: $20 rather than $30 for Saturday night hitting sessions, $25 rather than $35 for Monday night workouts covering hitting, fielding and pitching, and $25 rather than $35 for private invite tryouts. Registration is a payment first and a form second, with a confirmation email after.
A free agent list that a player joins once and that then feeds tryouts, expansion teams and off-season work is the model High Cheese builds around, and running it on a league's own page means the pool and the rosters it fills are the same records rather than two lists someone has to reconcile.
NYC Metro Baseball League in detail
- A 501(c)(3) adult league of 24-plus teams across five divisions, playing weekend doubleheaders in all five boroughs.
- Weekend doubleheaders, April to August and September to November, with no public fixture list.
- Five divisions, competitive balance reviewed each season, and no table published.
- The league has a GameChanger manager on its board and no results on its site.
- Eight expansion clubs since 2017, each with a founding season and a best finish on record.
- The league keeps a Victors' Vault for record holders and publishes no numbers.
- One league email, one published phone line, and a board of eight.
- Eighteen fields across the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn.
- The NABA rulebook, a league rules-and-regulations document, and a form for proposing changes.
- A newsletter, a news page and a podcast whose archive stops in 2015.
- A photo gallery, a video gallery, and a Hall of Champions organised by division.
- Two sponsors named on the homepage, with ad rates on the bulletin board.
- Playoffs in both seasons, and a travel side that plays NABA's Atlantic City weekends.
- Eight teams in April 2006, thirty within a few years, and four distinct administrations since.
- Eight officers, every one of whom played or managed in the league first.
- Ages, divisions, season length, game day and playoff format are all answered on the record.
- Rules and regulations, the NABA rulebook, a rules proposal form and a privacy policy.
- Winter workouts January to March, spring ball from April, fall ball from September.
- The league sells nothing of its own; only its national body has a shop.
- Officiated by the New Rochelle Umpires Association, founded 2021, and recruiting.
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