Two postseasons and a road team
The spring and summer season ends in double-elimination playoffs with a best-of-three championship series. The fall season, being short, settles it single-elimination throughout. Both are weekend competitions, in keeping with a league that plays doubleheaders on Saturdays or Sundays.
Beyond its own postseason the league fields the Metro Stars, a travel circuit that grew a 35-and-over side in recent years and plays the NABA Memorial Day and Labor Day tournaments in Atlantic City. The original travel team went to the NABA World Series in Florida in the league's first years, and the 35-and-over side has been to West Palm Beach.
A best-of-three final is the kind of thing a league should be able to point at a decade later. On a High Cheese league page the bracket, the series and the champion stay at the league's own address instead of scrolling off a homepage in October.
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.
- Free agent registration costs $4.88 and buys priority for placement, tryouts and discounted winter work.
- 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.
- 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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