[as5680]

Finally going to make a start on a league system I have been wanting to try for some time - a complete fictional 'history' of baseball in the UK and Ireland.

The league is based on the premise that the game had been brought to London shortly after the formation of the NABBP in 1857. Numerous clubs then formed in London and by 1865, six of them formed the first organised competition - the Metropolitan Baseball League. The league is named after London's local government authority of the time, the Metropolitan Board of Works.

It is my intention to grow that league as well as forming a number of other regional leagues around the UK and Ireland, each of which will then send a champion into a final play-off tournament using an association. I have a number of ideas as to how the leagues will grow but I don't want to plan too much in advance so I can adapt the leagues as they develop.

My starting points for the league are:

- I have tried to make player names as realistic as possible by creating name sets for England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.
- I have also amended the world database for these countries by placing all the towns in 'states' using the traditional counties of the UK and Ireland as they existed in 1865.
- To begin with, there are no players from outside the UK and Ireland. Indeed, there are no other countries in the game. I plan to gradually add other countries, initially the USA and the old 'dominions' of the British Empire as would have existed at the time.
- I don't plan to follow the real-life development of the game in terms of strategy. I have used 1871 strategy settings and will leave the stats settings unchanged, but will use 'current' player creation modifiers for each year.
- I don't intend to have leagues playing 'every day'. Initially, there will be one game per week, on Saturdays. This is partly because the league will initially be amateur, with no financials. Leagues will gradually turn professional and more games may be added but probably no more than three per week.
- I will often not keep to the format of 'Place name/Nickname' for team names, especially in the early years. This will cause a few difficulties with the news stories in the game but that is not a major problem.
- I will also use mostly coloured jerseys rather than white or grey.
- I will not manage a team, but rather just develop and plan the league.

League rules include:

- Teams will initially be allowed 15 players on their active roster, with an unlimited reserve roster and no secondary roster.
- Trading will initially be disabled, and then gradually introduced as the league develops.
- The starting format of the Metropolitan League will be a 30 game season, each team playing six games against each of the other five, beginning in late March and ending in mid-October. There will be no play-offs, unless a tie-breaker game is needed.
- There will be no 'disabled list' as such - I have set that to 1 day.
- There will be no minor leagues, all leagues will have the same status ('Major League') although they will have varying league reputations. The Metropolitan League starts with a reputation of 0 in its first season.
- There is no inaugural draft or amateur draft, at the start of the league teams will sign players from a pool of 165 players and new free agents will add to the pool each year.