The three that actually come up
Can I pitch? Not if you have played professionally anywhere, including a minor league camp or overseas summer ball. If you pitched in college, your whole team shares six innings for the season.
Will I play? Yes, and it is written down: two defensive innings and one plate appearance minimum every game, and a manager who denies it can lose the player outright -- released to another club or refunded for the rest of the season.
What if we only have eight? You play. The home side fields who it has; the away side bats who it has and takes an out when the empty slot comes up. The missing ninth spot is placed anywhere in the order but must be declared before the game. Fewer than eight ready within fifteen minutes is a forfeit, scored 9-0.
Fill-ins are allowed up to three per team, only to reach ten, only from the non-captain pool first, and they cannot pitch or catch unless the regular catcher is missing -- and the commissioner has to approve each one.
Those are the answers that decide whether a man joins. A High Cheese league page keeps them next to the join button and the fee, rather than at sections fifteen, thirteen and sixteen of a document.
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.
- A commissioner and a co-commissioner, approving every trade and every fill-in.
- 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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