Given paperwork as well as authority
Umpires in the PAB do more than call the game. They record the start time before it, sign off the final score after it, may inspect equipment whenever they judge it necessary or when any captain or league official asks, and go over ground rules and the batting order with both captains before first pitch. Either the plate or the field umpire may call a balk.
They can eject for fighting, for a verbal argument that delays the game after a warning, for spiking a defensive player, and for charging at the plate -- and each ejection carries a $50 fine and possible suspension at the league's discretion.
Teams pay the umpires directly when a game gets made up outside the schedule after a double forfeit, which tells you who the fees fall on.
No association or assignor is named. Assigning crews across a Sunday of back-to-back games is the same problem as the schedule, and a High Cheese league page runs both from one fixture list.
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.
- 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.