The league renews itself every winter
The PAB rebuilds itself annually and the rules for it are the most elaborate in this directory. New teams draft five players before any losing playoff team picks, and must take one pitcher, one catcher, two corner infielders, two middle infielders and three outfielders before doubling up anywhere. Any returning club that missed the playoffs gets a lottery pick placed in the sixth round, with the lottery drawn among the non-playoff teams first and the new teams after, ordered by the previous season's standings. After that, picks run by roster size -- smallest roster picks until it catches the next team -- and once several clubs are picking in a round, the worst record goes first. There is a supplemental round between the first and second.
Picks can be traded, with the rule that a team receiving a higher pick must send one back so that everyone ends at fourteen players, and a pick traded away by a club that then folds is honoured at the end of its round. The trade deadline is week seven and every player involved must agree.
A club that is not handed down from its captain to someone on its roster is disbanded, and its players go into what the league calls the non-returning keeper pool.
That is a league with a genuine institutional memory and no public record of any of it -- no past champion, no former club, no draft class. On a High Cheese league page each season keeps its own address with its roster, its results and its winner, so the keeper pool has something to remember.
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 commissioner and a co-commissioner, approving every trade and every fill-in.
- 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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