Amended by vote, one team one vote
The league publishes its official rulebook at version 3.1, last updated 2 March 2024, derived originally from another league's book and edited by a named member. Anything not covered falls to the 2019 MLB rulebook, and where that is unclear the umpire-in-chief makes the final call.
The governance is the interesting part. Any rules change or addition must be voted on by the team managers and the commissioner. Each team gets one vote and the commissioner gets one vote, and majority rules. New teams may be added only if a majority of current managers vote them in.
The league consists of one division of eight teams. A game that must end tied because of time or weather has to be resolved with a tiebreaker or finished no later than the last day of the regular season, and teams are individually responsible for scheduling their own makeup games before that date.
Its playoff tie-breaking is elaborate and consensual: two teams tied play a one-game playoff; more than two agree a tiebreaker among themselves; and where the tie does not affect who qualifies, the teams may mutually agree to use head-to-head record, then run differential against the whole league, then run differential against each other, then a coin flip.
A rulebook that its own members vote on should sit where they can read it before the meeting. A High Cheese league page keeps the current version beside the schedule it governs, at the league's own address.
The People's Baseball League in detail
- Co-ed, fast-pitch, wooden-bat baseball in New Orleans, open to anyone who wants to play.
- Sunday afternoons, two seasons a year, with makeup games arranged by the teams.
- Current standings and an all-time standings table, kept as separate pages.
- Weekly recaps written in the league's own voice, plus broadcasts.
- Ten clubs, named for the wards, streets and monsters of New Orleans.
- Run differential is used in the rules; no individual statistics are published.
- A contact section, a sign-up route and a donate page.
- A sign-up form, a waiver and dues paid together, and a mission that names who is welcome.
- It started at Lemann Playground at three o'clock on a Sunday.
- Games are broadcast and archived, and the league runs a podcast called Pitch Sequence.
- A social feed embedded on the about page, currently broken.
- A donate page rather than a sponsors page.
- Six championships on record, three of them to the Rougarou.
- A timeline that starts thousands of years ago and includes a night at Pal's Lounge.
- A commissioner with one vote, and managers with one each.
- Who can play, what kind of baseball, and what happens when a game ties.
- A rulebook published as a page and as a PDF, plus a waiver.
- Two seasons a year, with championships in June and December.
- Nothing is for sale; the league takes donations.
- An umpire-in-chief with the final call, and ejection powers written down.
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