An office with real work in it
The PAB runs through a commissioner and a co-commissioner, and the rulebook gives them a genuine caseload: approving every trade before it is valid, approving every fill-in player, suggesting free agents to captains who state a position of need, researching new players to determine whether they have played professionally, deciding suspensions after fights, and evaluating every ejection individually.
Trades go to a dedicated commissioner address; general questions to a league address.
Nobody is named. For an office making that many discretionary decisions -- including whether a man is a professional and therefore cannot pitch -- the person holding it is anonymous on the public record.
A High Cheese league page attaches a working contact to the role and keeps the roster, trade and eligibility records behind the same address, which is most of what that inbox is currently doing by hand.
Philadelphia Amateur Baseball League in detail
- This is not a beer league. This is not softball. Sundays, wood bats, and a real draft.
- Every game on a Sunday, three and a half hours, with the next game's start time as the clock.
- Divisional tables with clinching marks and five tiebreakers.
- Every team must keep the book, and not keeping it costs a club its awards.
- Sixteen players minimum, and a rule that lets a benched man leave with a refund.
- An official statkeeper, post-season awards, and no public numbers.
- Two league addresses — one general, one for the commissioner's business.
- A $150 deposit before a free agent joins a team, and no uniforms ordered until it is paid.
- Tarken and Edgley, with published ground rules and a groundskeeping rota.
- No professional pitchers, six innings of college pitching a season, and a fine for breaking someone else's bat.
- A golf outing, a Phillies game, and a newsletter to subscribe to.
- A photos section sits in the main navigation.
- The homepage notes outside coverage and names no sponsor.
- A divisional round, a bye for each division winner, and a best-of-three championship.
- A live draft with a lottery, a supplemental round, and a keeper pool for disbanded clubs.
- Can I pitch, will I play, and what happens if we only have eight?
- One rulebook of thirty-five numbered sections, published in full on the web.
- A year of deadlines: 31 January, spring training, week seven, the last game in June.
- Uniforms are league-ordered, and a trade means paying to change the name on the back.
- Umpires record the start time, sign the final score, and may inspect any bat.
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