The Show Baseball League

Constitution

Stated Purpose: The purpose of this league is to provide entertainment, competition, and to a lesser extent- camaraderie, by playing baseball on computer and interacting with other team managers during the course of the season, playoffs, and off season. The Show's was formed in 1996. All games will be played using the current version of the Diamond Mind Baseball computer game (currently version 8). The Show is a “Hands on” league and each manager is required to be a registered owner of the version of the game being used and the season disk being used for league play. In the making of all league rules, there will be a goal that any and all rules should reflect the realism of the game by adhering to current MLB rules whenever possible.

League Structure: The Show Baseball League, referred to as "The Show" or "SBL" for short, will consist two leagues, American and National, with two divisions of five teams apiece for a total of 20 teams. Each team will play a 162 game schedule and qualifying teams will continue into the post-season (details below). Each team will have an owner, who must be in good standing, maintain a working email account and have the ability to transfer files and data electronically on the internet. Any change of ball parks and/or team name will only be allowed during the off season. A new owner who enters the league in mid season will not be able to make any changes until the off season.

The SBL administration shall consist of a league commissioner, assistant commissioner/league statistician, and four division representatives which will be known as the Board of Governors (“BOG”). Each position shall have one vote in matters to be voted on by SBL administration and the commissioner shall hold no other position in this league or any other league. Other positions may be held simultaneously. Administration positions in this league may be elected or appointed, but any three managers may call for a vote of confidence on any league officer. If that manager fails the vote of confidence, a new manager shall be appointed or elected by the remaining board of governors.

All rule changes shall take place during the off season. The Commissioner shall have the right to formulate league policy both in and out of the season. Any manager may submit a constitutional proposal for vote at any time to the commissioner. The commissioner will submit the proposal to the board of governors for review. The board retains the right to review and/or rewrite any proposal submitted to it. Only the board may alter or reject a constitutional proposal. League structure may be changed by 3/4 (75%) approval of members in good standing. Any other change requires a simple majority vote of members in good standing. Any vote ending in a tie does not pass. All issues voted on will become effective on December 1st unless noted otherwise in the proposal.

General League Rules:

Injuries: On

Bullpen: No Warm-up

Weather Effects: On

Clutch Ratings: On

DH: All teams

Automatic Saving of Boxscores and Scoresheets

Participation: Manager Profiles are due the 1st of each in season month and games are to be played and statistics submitted by the 17^th of the month. If games are not received, they will be auto played...no exceptions. Managers are still responsible for usage of players used during auto played games. Any manager instructing the league statistician to auto play his games on or before the 17th of the month will not be considered late. The following outlines the penalties for reporting late: 1^st offense = 1 point, 2^nd offense = 2 points, 3^rd offense = 3 points, 4^th offense = 4 points. For EACH 3 points accumulated, team moves down 1 position in the draft. For example, if you have the #1 overall pick, but were late twice and accumulated 3 points, you move down to #2. If you accumulate 10 points you are removed from the league (late 4 of the 6 months).

Annual roster cuts are due by Nov 30th of each year. Any teams not submitting cuts by the due date are subject to having their cuts made by league administration in a timely and appropriate manner.

If any member is guilty of any unethical action as determined by a majority of the SBL administration, it is grounds for immediate and permanent expulsion from the league. These actions shall include, but not be limited to, falsifying game play, intentionally losing, dumping players before exiting the league, etc. Any appropriate action, subject to board of governor approval, may be taken by the commissioner.

Any manager in good standing may file a protest on fair play, procedures, or policy affecting his team in a negative fashion (losses). Games may only be replayed if such protest will have an effect on final standings by any team involved in the protest. No less than three administrators, including the commissioner or assistant commissioner, shall render a decision regarding the validity of the protest. No league member may make a decision on a protest if his team is directly involved in said protest. The protest 'jury' should come from outside the protester's division.

There is an initial entry fee of $15 for new managers to be administered by the commissioner, but no annual dues.

Rosters: Each team will be limited to a maximum 40 man roster at any time. During the regular season and playoffs, each team is only allowed to have 25 players active with the exception of the month of September when all roster players are eligible to play.

Rosters will be reduced to no less than 20 and no more than 25 after the season on Nov.30th of each year and then immediately allowed to return up to 40 through trading or drafting of players. Mandatory usage cuts will be enforced even if the player is traded.

Players must meet the following requirements:

It is required that managers see that all their players play a minimum of 50% of their real playing time stats and no more than 110% of their real playing time stats (adjusted, if necessary). Penalties will be assessed as stated below in the Penalties section for violations above 110% and the player will become a free agent if over 120%. If extenuating circumstances cause a player to violate this rule, an owner may petition the commissioner to reinstate the lost player to his former roster.

The playing time stats for batters will be Plate Appearances (PA's). Pitchers will use Batters Faced (BF) for relievers or number of Starts for starters. A pitcher who relieves and starts must meet the minimum statistical limitations for EITHER Starts OR Batters Faced. A pitcher who relieves and starts must meet the maximum statistical limitations for BOTH Starts AND Batters Faced.

Starters that have no relief appearances can only start during the regular season. They can relieve during the post season.

Drafted players that do not appear on the following season disk may be kept and he will be considered a non-rated player designated with a NR at the end of his name. These players may be traded. If he is released, he may not be drafted until he appears on the disk again. At no time may a non-rated player be activated and if he is, will become a free agent.

Any batter with less that 30 PA and any pitcher with less than 30 BF are exempt from minimum usage requirements.

Penalties: For every player that exceeds 110% of his playing time, a penalty win will be assessed to the team based on the following criteria:

Excess of 20 PAs = 1 win for each 20 PAs

Excess of 20 BFs = 1 win for each 20 BFs

Excess Starts = 1 win per start

Penalty wins are then subtracted from a team’s total for playoff consideration and added to the total for a team’s upcoming draft position.

In addition, any player that exceeds 120% of his playing time becomes a free agent.

Any team with new management will suffer penalty wins but not loss of players.

Trades: Trading periods will be from October 1st until November 16th. December 1st to 5 days before the draft, 48 hours after the draft until March 20th and during the season months of April, May, June and July from the 17th to the 20th. Only players and current draft choices will be allowed to be traded during this time. All trades must be approved by the SBL commissioner. Any trade involving the SBL commissioner's team must be approved by the competition chairman or league statistician. If the draft is conducted by online electronic means, trading may occur during this drafting period but will not be effective until the next disk.

Free Agent/Rookie Draft: The SBL shall conduct an annual rookie/free agent draft on the LAST Saturday in February consisting of twelve (12) rounds. The first six (6) rounds of the draft will be conducted in the Yahoo Club Page chat room or equivalent alternative. The last six (6) rounds will be conducted by email over a twelve (12) day period. All free agents will come from all players that are on the current Diamond Mind game player file that are not on any SBL team roster. The order of the draft initially will be reverse order of finish in the regular season for non-playoff teams and reverse order of finish in the playoffs. Positions will then be altered by any applicable penalty wins. Positions when teams have identical records will be determined by fewest penalty wins, best head to head, then by division record, then by record vs. SBL champ, and then by coin toss. The only way to increase the size of your roster other than the draft is via trading. Nobody may pick up free agents after the close of the draft.

If a team owner is unable to participate in the annual online free agent draft, any arrangements to have someone draft for him will be approved by the commissioner. If approved arrangements have not been made, then the corresponding division representative shall make the draft choices for the absent owner.

Ballparks: Stadiums are picked on first come first serve basis. Teams may move to a new stadium that is not currently in use only during the off season. No more than one team may occupy the same stadium at the same time. In the event a real-life team moves to a new stadium, the team currently in possession of the team's former stadium will have first chance at the new park. If said team opts to change stadiums entirely, the new stadium will become available to the first claimant.

Playoffs: There will be a total of eight teams qualifying for the playoffs, four from each league. The four teams will be the two division winners and two wild card teams. The two wild cards will be the two best non-division winner records. The teams will be seeded with best record 1^st, other division winner 2^nd, wild card with better record 3^rd, and second wild card 4^th. All series will be best-of-seven where seed 1 will play 4 and 2 will play 3 in the division series. The two winners of the division series will face each other in the League Championship Series and the LCS winners will play for the World Series. Home field advantage for the World Series will alternate each year between the AL and NL beginning with the NL hosting the 2001 World Series.

The roster size for the playoffs is 25 players and can be changed between series only. Player usage for each playoff series is as follows:

Batters are limited to 10% of Plate Appearances (PA)

Relievers are limited to 10% of Batters Faced (BF)

Starters with 1-9 starts can not start

Starters with 10-19 starts can start once

Starters with 20-29 starts can start twice

Starters with more than 30 starts can start three times

The player disk for the division series will be available by October 1^st and all series must be completed by October 10^th. The LCS disk will be available by October 13^th and those series’ will be completed by October 23^rd. The World Series disk will be available by October 26^th and the World Series will be completed by November 4^th.

If one playoff team cannot play head to head within the time limit, then the ready team may petition the commissioner to play against an approved manager profile. If neither team is ready to play by the scheduled time, then the commissioner has the right to have the series auto-played.