Four codes, endlessly reshuffled
The league refers to its grounds by abbreviation in its bulletins, and the main four it names for completing a rained-out season are SZ-SP, UIW, VJK and LAFB -- a university field, a Lackland Air Force Base diamond and two city sites -- with BMc and CC also appearing when fixtures have to be moved midweek.
Availability at those grounds is the constraint on everything. A weekend at the university had to be vacated entirely and seven games rehoused. A grounds crew's watering plan shaped a whole August schedule. A golf tournament at the same university on a September Saturday forced the All-Star games to be adjusted. Lighting work at another field was still uncertain in late July.
Playing on grounds like these is what the league means when it says it earned the right to them by playing with class.
A High Cheese schedule attaches the ground to each game and updates in place, so a fixture moved from the university to an air force base on a Monday night reaches the twenty men it concerns rather than everyone.
San Antonio MSBL in detail
- Real hardball in five age divisions, in its fourth decade, on quality fields it says it earned.
- 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.
- 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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