Forty-odd diamonds, three jurisdictions
Ponce publishes a full field table with name, street address, city, state and a map link for every ground. In the District: Banneker, which the league lists under its other name, Maury Wills Field, on Georgia Avenue. In Maryland: Blair, Blake, Einstein, Paint Branch and Springbrook high schools, Cabin John and Damascus regional parks, Falls Road, Kelley, Laytonia, MLK Jr., Newport Mill, Northwest Branch, Olney Manor, Ridge Road and Tilden. In Virginia: Annandale, Bishop O'Connell, Chantilly, Edison, George C. Marshall, Hayfield, Herndon, Justice, Lake Braddock, Mount Vernon, South Lakes and Thomas Jefferson high schools, plus Barcroft, Alabama Drive, Dulles Corner, Ellanor C. Lawrence, Frank Mann, Hooes Road, Langley Forks, Laurel Hill, Nike, Nottoway, Poplar Tree, South County and South Park Run.
Holding permits on that many public and school fields across two states and the District is the largest administrative job any league in this directory does.
The league also runs a field status page and posts real-time updates about conditions and weather cancellations, because with forty grounds a single blanket rainout call is useless.
A High Cheese schedule attaches the right one of those forty to each game and moves it when the field goes down, which is the same information the status page is currently broadcasting to everybody at once.
Ponce De Leon Baseball in detail
- Named for the man who went looking for the Fountain of Youth, and run on that principle.
- One game a week, with three separate opening days in the first week of April.
- There are no league standings, on purpose, and every team makes the playoffs.
- With no standings kept, results are not published either.
- Teams are built centrally by state, age and talent, and no roster is published.
- No statistics are published, in a league that caps innings and hit batsmen.
- A league email, a league phone number, and a second address for photographs.
- Everyone who signs up makes a team, and the fees are published to the dollar.
- Four runs an inning, nobody pitches before 36, and the batting order carries over from last week.
- Announcements and field status live at the top of the front page.
- The league asks players to send in game-day pictures; the division galleries say photos coming soon.
- No sponsor is named.
- Single elimination in spring and fall, seeded, with every team in.
- Founded in the 1980s — the site gives two different years — and serving 30-and-overs for more than thirty of them.
- A league manager and a managers' meeting; nobody is named.
- How old, how long, how often, and whether you will stick out.
- The rules, the costs and the uniform requirements are published as pages rather than files.
- A winter camp in Florida, a managers' dinner in March, three openings in April, and a fall deadline in August.
- A league jersey bought once per age division, and worn for as long as you keep coming back.
- The league is recruiting umpires, trains them, and pays them.
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