Seven teams, and the Ferryhawks
The league expanded its playoffs to seven teams for 2026, and published exactly how it works. The number one overall seed takes a bye in the first week while the two plays the seven, the three plays the six and the four plays the five. In week two the top seed draws the lowest remaining survivor, the other two meet, and the higher seed has home field. Every series is best of three and every game is nine innings.
The All-Star Game is on Friday night, 21 August, at the Ferryhawks' stadium in Staten Island, and the Championship Series follows on 22 and 23 August. The postseason drive began on 8 August.
Putting an amateur championship in a professional park is something this league has done repeatedly -- Maimonides Park in Coney Island in 2022, Shea Stadium some twenty years before that, Staten Island now.
A championship recorded on a High Cheese league page keeps the bracket, the series and the winning roster attached to the year, so a sixty-seventh title at a professional ground is something the league can point at in its hundredth season.
Pancho Coimbre Baseball in detail
- Founded in 1959 and still playing in the North Meadow, in what may be the longest continuously running independent amateur league anywhere.
- April to August, weekend doubleheaders, with the fixture list living inside a scoring app.
- Twelve teams, eleven of them alive for seven playoff spots in July.
- Weekend recaps written up game by game, with pitching lines and who drove in what.
- Twelve clubs in the Pancho and Coimbre divisions, from Harlem to Flatbush.
- Official statistics live in GameChanger, and the league fee pays for it.
- A contact form for teams and sponsors, and Instagram for everything about a specific club.
- A free agent pool, an annual draft in January, and different rules depending on the month.
- The North Meadow of Central Park, with occasional games on Randall's Island and in Red Hook.
- American League rules, signed by the managers, enforced on an honour system — with forfeits available anyway.
- The Punch Out podcast, plus season previews and weekend recaps written team by team.
- The league credits its photographers by name.
- Teams were once named for the restaurants that backed them; sponsorship is still invited.
- Three commissioners in sixty-seven years, a Caribbean league circuit, and permits handed over by handwritten note.
- A commissioner since 2015 and three league administrators, in a line running back to 1959.
- The league answers the awkward ones directly: no guaranteed spot, no guaranteed playing time.
- The charter, revised June 2025, with a code of conduct addendum attached.
- A year with three phases: draft in January, season April to August, free agency in between.
- There is a cart in the header and nothing published to put in it.
- Ground rules are agreed with the home plate umpire before every game.
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