We earned our right to play on quality fields
SAMSBL calls itself a league of adult amateurs who play baseball -- real hardball, in its own parenthesis -- in divisions at Open, 30, 40, 50 and 60 and over, affiliated with the national MSBL/MABL. It is in its fourth decade. There are tryouts once a year in February, and everyone pays to play about twenty-one weekend games from mid-March to August, with tournaments extra over the summer holidays and the national World Series in Phoenix in October as the grand finale.
The line it repeats to its own members is the one worth quoting: image and reputation have served us well for thirty-two-plus years, and as we trek toward our fourth decade of playing adult baseball, please remember that we earned our right to play on quality fields because we play with class at all times.
That is a league that understands its permits are a reward rather than a booking, and says so to its players every season.
All of it lives on a hand-built site that its own president has publicly apologised for being unable to update. A High Cheese league page puts the schedule, the standings and every roster at an address the league owns, which is what four decades of earned reputation deserves to be recorded on.
San Antonio MSBL in detail
- A schedule rebuilt monthly, in red, around rain, high school playoffs and stadium lights.
- Scores are phoned in, standings are published on a Tuesday, and managers must check their own record.
- Scores are telephoned in at the weekend and appear as standings on Tuesday.
- Teams are identified by number in the schedule, and managers are asked to stop them forfeiting.
- Games played is the only figure the league tracks publicly, and it decides the season.
- A league number for calling in scores, and a president who signs everything.
- Tryouts once a year, in February, and you pay to play.
- Four main grounds carrying the season, including a university, an air force base and a stadium.
- Standard baseball for the 45s, and a substantially different game for the 60s.
- A president's bulletin board that doubles as the league's only public record.
- No gallery is published.
- No sponsor is named.
- Top four in each division, and an All-Star team chosen by the players themselves.
- Thirty-two-plus years, counted by the league itself.
- A president, and a managers' meeting that functions as the board.
- Divisions, season length and tryout timing are answered; the fee is not.
- League rules, league policy, league forms and a set of yearbooks.
- Tryouts in February, ball from mid-March, Phoenix in October, and a managers' meeting in January.
- Nothing is for sale, but the uniform gets its own instruction.
- Umpires take lineups at the plate meeting and hold the clock.
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