Ponce de Leon Baseball Rules

Rules designed to keep the game hittable

The signature rule is the age floor on the mound. You must be 36 by the end of the year to pitch in a 30+ game, and 60 to pitch in a 60+ game. The league states its reasoning plainly: it cuts down velocity and gives everyone a chance to hit the ball. In the 30+ division that produces pitching from the low sixties to the high seventies, with fastballs, curveballs, sliders and the occasional knuckleball.

The second is a run cap. For the first six innings, a half-inning ends at three outs or four runs, whichever comes first -- three runs in the 60+ division. The cap lifts after the sixth in a nine-inning game and after the fifth in a seven, and all runs count on a home run over the fence. It is the rule that stops a blowout at the point where the losing side would normally start going home.

The third is the continuous batting order, and it is the strangest and best idea in this directory: the order carries over from one game to the next, picking up next week where it ended this week. Playoff games may reset it. Everybody bats, everybody rotates defensively, and nobody sits two consecutive defensive innings unless he chooses to.

Add: mandatory courtesy running for the catcher with two outs in 30+, and for the catcher and pitcher in 48+ and 60+; a pitcher removed after three hit batsmen; a five-inning cap in nine-inning games and four in sevens, with any appearance counting as an inning; no fake tags; no blocking a base with or without the ball; and only players in the dugout -- no children, wives, friends or dogs.

Rules this specific need to reach a man on a Sunday morning who has not read them since March. A High Cheese league page keeps the current version beside the fixture it governs, which is where a batting order that carries over from last week has to be looked up.