River City NABA Code of Conduct

Written in games, not warnings

The code of conduct is the most detailed disciplinary document in this directory, and it measures everything in games. A first fight brings ejection, a minimum three-game suspension and twenty games of probation; a second, ten and forty; a third, thirty games, a hundred games' probation and possible permanent expulsion, plus the offender's team forfeiting at least one game and possibly the rest of the season. If both benches empty, both teams are ejected, both take a loss, and next week's games are cancelled and forfeited -- with a second occurrence costing five games up to the remainder of the season.

Verbal abuse of an official runs one to three games first, then four games and twenty probation, then ten and forty up to expulsion. Physically attacking an umpire or their property is a minimum ten games plus probation, plus possible expulsion, and the league names the California statute it also breaks. Following an umpire off the field -- defined by the fence lines -- is four games minimum. A manager ejected three times in a season may not continue as a manager.

Alcohol and drugs count as both an individual and a team violation, escalating from three games and twenty probation to ten and forty, then indefinite suspension -- and any violation that costs the league a field means the team is suspended indefinitely and fined the cost of that field before reinstatement is even considered.

Underneath all of it sits an unusual instruction on sportsmanship: managers must enforce the unwritten rules of baseball, and if a player or manager is unsure what those are, the league tells them to do an internet search.

A code this consequential should be one tap from the fixture. A High Cheese league page keeps it at the league's own address beside the schedule, where a manager reads it before a Sunday rather than after one.