CYBER DIAMOND BASEBALL LEAGUE 1987 LEAGUE RULES COMMISH & STAT KEEPER: Mike Littau (littaum@nmia.com) CDBL Web Site: http://www.nmia.com/~littaum/cdbl.html LAST UPDATED: August 27, 2000 I. INTRODUCTION The Cyber Diamond Baseball League (CDBL) is an internet e-mail computer simulated baseball league using Diamond Mind Baseball version 7.0d. The CDBL began with the 1984 season. Diamond Mind Baseball (DMB) is a computer-simulation baseball program. It allows you to have a team of major leaguers. You are the general manager as well as the coach. You can build a team to fit your style and philosophies. The computer uses real-life player stats to generate baseball games. In effect, this is "cyber-baseball". Build a team on speed and hitting? On the 3-run homer? On a stellar pitching staff to win 1-0 games? It's up to you. DMB is considered to be an extremely accurate and realistic simulation. However, there may be some minor differences. Players may not necessarily perform exactly as they did in real life, whether it be due to park effects, other people around them in the lineup, or just random luck. Team dependent stats such as wins/losses, saves, runs and RBI are especially prone to variation. There are many factors which influence the Cyber Diamond Baseball League. If you have guys who get on base a lot, the cleanup hitters will usually generate a lot of RBI's. The ballpark is a factor. Playing in the Astrodome will generally make your hitting worse & pitching better. Playing in Wrigley will generally make your hitting better & pitching worse. A mediocre pitcher who played in the Astrodome might get his socks knocked off playing full time in Wrigley, while a slugger who did fairly good in Busch stadium might be a terror in Fenway stadium. II. LEAGUE CONFERENCES/DIVISION/OWNERS/TEAMS/EMAIL/STADIUMS American Conference Aaron Division Paige Division Geof Hobday - Arkham Investigators Mike Edge - Taos Shaman Memorial Stadium Arlington Stadium ghobday@hhlaw.com Michael_Edge@Mail.BankOne.com Jamie Ogle - Point Lomas Friars Jee Su Chang - DC Riots Jack Murphy Stadium Dodger Stadium jogle@adnc.com ristak2@yahoo.com Theron Skyles - Elk Grove Trout Don Hunt - Fargo Flames Oakland Coliseum Royals Stadium tgs3@pacbell.net dhunt@crocusfund.com Brian Stromblad - Milwaukee Mashers Wesley Tilley - Hurdle Mills Hurdlers County Stadium Riverfront Stadium scorpion@ix.netcom.com wtilley@nortelnetworks.com Chris Pettit - Philadelphia Liberty Cleveland Stadium christopher.m.pettit@us.arthurandersen.com Will Hobday - Dewey Beach Lush Fenway Park ----------------------- Will_Hobday@metroinc.com Elan Gelbart - Sprinfield Isotopes Shea Stadium sposfan@hotmail.com National Conference Gehrig Division Tiant Division Robert Ogle - Ocean Beach Surfers Jeff Valentine - Missouri Mules Comisky Park Fulton County Stadium bobogle@mindspring.com jeffv64@aol.com Kevin Pennington - San Mateo Traffic Greg Basso - Orange Whoop Candlestick Park Wrigley Field kpennington@rsasecurity.com gdbasso@aol.com Daniel Goldberg - Topeka Stingers Jeff Goldberg - Boston Bulldogs Olympic Stadium Tiger Stadium daniel.m.goldberg@us.arthurandersen.com jeff24k@hotmail.com Rick Zapor - PV Stallions Neal Johnson - Hollywood Stars Anaheim Stadium Yankee Stadium razapor@earthlink.net njarts@yahoo.com Mike Littau - Albuquerque Maul Christopher Long - Dark Valley Destinies Kingdome Veterans Stadium littaum@nmia.com csjlong@hotmail.com Jeff Jones - Homestead Gray's Busch Stadium jones99@us.ibm.com SPECIAL NOTE ON STATS USED IN RULES: All stats, unless otherwise noted, refer the the player's actual MLB stats. IE-100 AB means 100 MLB AB, 45 IP means 45 MLB IP, etc, etc, etc. All "hard" numbers (such as AB/530) really mean MLB AB/530 AB. The 110% pro-rating factor has already been taken into account. III. GENERAL RULES 1. Each team will play 162 games, broken down to games by division: 1. Aaron vs Aaron - 12 games each Aaron vs Paige - 8 games each Aaron vs Gehrig - 6 games each Aaron vs Tiant - 6 games each Paige vs Paige - 10 games each Paige vs Gehrig - 7 games each Paige vs Tiant - 6 games each Gehrig vs Gehrig - 10 games each Gehrig vs Tiant - 8 games each Tiant vs Tiant - 12 games each 2. The DH will *NOT* be used. A player who was DH only (indicated by not having any positions whatsoever) will only be elligible to play first base. *WARNING* their fielding will be that of Dave Kingman on a bad day, so be sure to ask yourself if it's worth it. 3. 8 days worth of games are played each week. 1 day is played on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and 2 days worth of games are played on Wednesday and Saturday. League stats are updated on Saturday. All trades must be confirmed by both sides, and occur immediately upon such notice. After game 81 (or approximately around there) the all-star break will occur. One week is taken off for the all-star game. The deadline for trading for the current season is game #120. After game 120 has been played, no trades may occur until after the season. 4. I'll be posting the standings, league leaders, game results,notes, tidbits, etc, as well as team stats every week (although some stats may not be posted as often). Since this is an e-mail league, and info isn't too "public" as far as trades, drops, and free agent signings go, I will also post a weekly transaction list. For free agent signings, the team with the worst current record who files a claim within 24 hours of the transaction list posting gets the free agent (this is for people who were just waived). Any other free agent signings are first-come, first-serve. MANAGERIAL PROFILE 5. Each team needs to fill out the following: * Managerial tendencies: * Bunting, Hit and Run, Stealing, Running the Bases, Pitching Around, Intentional Walks, Holding Runners, Infield In, Guarding the Lines, Pinch Hitting for batters, Pinch Hitting for Pitchers, Pinch Hitting for Platoon Players, Pinch Hitting in a blowout, Using Relievers, and Using Closers. * Each can be rated as: Most Frequent, More Frequent, Normal, Less Frequent, or Least Frequent. * Basically, setting these to normal means the manager plays the percentages. Rickey Henderson will still get tons of steals with a manager tendency of normal stealing. More frequent generally means they're more aggressive in the area of question, but can mean more mistakes. Unless you change them they'll be at normal. * A batting lineup vs left & right handed pitchers * For each batting lineup, you can: => Have a defensive substitute for each position, which would put the player in question in the field late in the inning where defense is needed. => Have a platoon player that comes in if a pitcher of different handedness comes in the game => Have up to 5 backups (called utility players) with the %age of time they play (explained later). * Up to 5 pinch hitters vs each side * A starting pitching rotation, either 4 or 5 pitchers. * You may also designate the following: => Mop-up pitchers. These come in when the score is lopsided in either direction and the winner/loser is not in question anymore. It helps save your relievers for later games. => Long relievers. They come in when the starter gets bombed. (NOTE: These have to be relievers). Up to three. => Setup men. They can be either vs left handed or right handed batters. Up to three vs each may be defined. => Closers. They can be either vs left handed or right handed batters. Up to three vs each may be defined. * You can have pitchers in multiple spots. The long relievers can also be setup men, a closer vs left handers may be the setup man vs right handers, and a guy who is closer for one side may be closer for the other (to cite a few examples). Just remember that the more you use the pitchers the faster they burn out. All relievers must have a durability rating for relief. PLAYOFFS 6. A total of 7 teams will make the playoffs: the 4 pennant winners, one wildcard from each conference (with the best non-pennant winning record), as well as a league wildcard (the team with the next best record in the league). The conference wild cards will face the pennant winner with the worse record. The league wildcard will face the pennant winner with the better record in the conference in which the league wildcard plays. The pennant winner with the better record that is in the opposite league as the league wildcard will get a bye. The league wildcard will never have home field advantage, while conference wildcards will never have home field advantage (unless they face the league wildcard). When/if pennant winners meet, the team with the better record will have home field advantage. PLAYOFF SETUP _League WC #1 (or bye)______________ _Pennant Winner w/best record (HFA)_|------------| _Conf WC _____________________ |____Conf Winner___ _Pennant Winner (HFA)_________|------------------| | __CDBL Champs_____| _BYE (or League WC #1)______________ | _Pennant Winner w/best record (HFA)_|------------| | _Conf WC _____________________ |___ Conf Winner___| _Pennant Winner (HFA)_________|------------------| If teams are tied for a playoff spot (or a chance to get into the playoffs altogether), then the following criteria will be used to break the tie: Team with better record against other team, then team with best divisional record, then team with best conference record, then the team with best differential between runs scored and runs allowed. Teams will need to specify 30 players on their roster which are elligible for the playoffs. Any excess players (usually replacement players signed in the place of burnouts during the regular season) will be inelligble for the rest of the playoffs. One addendum to this: Burnout signees after game 120 are not elligible to be in post-season rosters. Pinch hitters must have at least 30 AB vs the side they are appearing in. Platoon players must have at least 30 AB vs the side they will be listed as hitting against (IE-a platoon player listed in the RHP depth chart must have 30 AB vs lefties). A defensive replacement must have at least 30 total AB. If a guy doesn't have the necessary AB to be mentioned in the pinch hitter profile, the computer may still use him, but not until giving preference to people mentioned in the PH profile. For the playoffs, starting pitchers need to have at least 100 IP and 10 starts in real life to be in the starting rotation. A minimum of 4 starters need to be specified, and the pitching usage will be "straight". Releivers need to have at least 45 IP to be mentioned in the reliever profile. If a reliever doesn't have the necessary IP and is carried on the playoff roster, the computer may still decide to use him, but not until giving preference to the relievers mentioned on the profile. The method of determining batting playing time will be set to "Game by Game". In general, keep in mind that the playoffs are an attempt at trying to cram an entire season's worth of play into a 7 game series, with people having a large part of the regular season's success having a large part in the playoffs. Playoff profiles should be made in this spirit. Pinch hitters will need at least 30 AB vs that particular side in order to be mentioned in the pinch hitter profile. "Total" Playoff percentages are based on AB/500, rather than AB/530 for the regular season. * * * * * * * * * * * * IMPORTANT * * * * * * * * * * * * The following is *VERY* important if you play people with less than 500 AB with unequal distributions of at bats. Read on to avoid a lot of hassles, both on my part and on your part. All %'s mentioned range from 1-100 in this case. The simple part of the rules: (AB #'s refer to MINIMUMS) * Each player has 3 different sets of AB: Total AB, AB vs LHP, AB vs RHP. The AB vs LHP and AB vs RHP sum up to the Total AB. The AB vs LHP can be found in the batting stats vs LHP, the AB vs RHP can be found in the batting stats vs RHP, and the Total AB can be found in the total batting stats. * To play a person 100% of the time vs LHP and 100% vs RHP he **MUST** have 500 total AB, 80 AB vs lefties, 170 AB vs righties * To play a person 100% of the time vs LHP (and 0% vs RHP) he **MUST* have 160 total AB and 80 AB vs lefties * To play a person 100% of the time vs RHP (and 0% vs LHP) he **MUST* have 340 total AB and 170 AB vs righties If your player doesn't meet the above qualifications, then it gets a bit more complicated. * All %ages are rounded to the nearest integer. * If a player has less than the minimum AB for a particular side (80 AB LHP, 170 AB RHP), but has the necessary total AB for that side (160 AB LHP, 340 AB RHP), then the maximum %age they can start vs that particular side is 100%*(LHP AB)*2/160 for facing LHP and 100%*(RHP AB)*2/340 for righthanders. In other words, you can play a person up to 200% of their actual at bats for a particualr side. * To start a person a different %age for each particular side, use this formula: (%age of time vs LHP)*0.32 + (%age of time vs RHP)*0.68 = Total% The total %age can't exceed 100%*(TOTAL AB)/500, and the (%age of time vs LHP) can't exceed 100%*(LHP AB)*2/160 & (%age of time vs RHP) can't exceed 100%*(RHP AB)*2/340 * Each position must sum up to 100%, and exactly 100%. A player's starting %age may be split up among positions, as long as the %ages add up to the original starting %age (IE-a person allowed to play 30% of the time vs lefties can split that into three positions of 10%, 5% and 15%, since it still adds up to 30%. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *NOTICE ON 500 AB ELLIGIBILITY*: In the playoffs, you must be able to have 500 AB at each position at the same time. If you cannot meet this requirement, then the worst player in the free agent pool (determined by the commish) will be assigned to your team to make the minimum. *NOTICE ON PITCHER ELLIGIBILITY*: In the playoffs, you need at least 4 starters with 100 IP/10 starts. If you can't meet this requirement, the worst starter in the free agent pool will be assigned to your rotation during the playoffs. It's happened before, and believe me the results are not pretty. 7. POSITION ELIGBILITY: In order for a person to play catcher, 2B, SS, 3B or center field, they must have a defensive rating for that position. A person can play either left or right field if they have a rating at left or right field (IE-RF & LF are interchangeable). Players rated at the center field position can play all three outfield positions (but people rated at LF and or RF only can't play CF). Hitters without any defensive ratings whatsoever (IE-DH-types) will be allowed to play first base. NOTE: Only DH-types are allowed this. Other people who are rated at a position which isn't first still cannot play first. This rule is meant to allow DH-types to play a position and to avoid reducing them to the role of a glorified pinch-hitter. Also note that these DH-types will field very poorly, and will be ranked at the bottom of the fielding ratings for first basemen. Starting pitchers are those who have a durability rating for a starter. Relief pitchers are those who have a durability rating for a reliever. People with ratings for both catagories can both start and relieve. But a relief-only pitcher can't start, and a start-only pitcher can't relieve. Mop-up, Long, Setup & Closer are relief roles, while start and spot start roles are for starters. NOTE ON CLOSERS: Closers do *NOT* have to be those in real life. In DMB any reliever can close without penalty. However, traditional closers are still generally the best people to get the job done. 8. PLAYING TIME: DMB determines the amount of playing time a batter will get over the season by starting time %ages. For batters, you can have either of two settings on how to gauge playing time: Track Starts, or Game By Game. Game By Game chooses a player without regard to past playing time. Track Starts takes into account how much playing time someone has had during the season. Kevin Mitchell set to 50% with track starts may get more playing time in the first half of the season but as he hits the halfway point he may be benched more. In general game by game is the better way to go. The gauge for playing time is plate appearances (AB + BB + ??) for batters, and batters faced for pitchers. This is what DMB uses to determine how close someone is to reaching their real life playing time (displayed by a %age on my computer). AB & IP is a good gauge for you to quickly find out how close someone is. It probably won't be exactly the same, but it's close. A player will be able to play to *110%* of their real life playing time. 9. PLAYING TIME CRITERIA: (0) Batters must have 30 AB or more. Pitchers must have 15 IP or more. If they fail to meet these minimums, they will be deactivated, and burnout signees will be signed in their place immediately after the draft. This rule is mainly aimed at those "super prospects" who had a couple of AB in their first year before busting out the second. (1) A batter can only play up to 200% of their actual at bats on a side vs a particularly handed pitcher. If a player has 10 AB vs lefties in real life, he may only get up to 20 AB vs lefties in DMB. If he reaches 200%, then his starting %age vs that side must be set to 0 for the rest of the season. This is to help prevent "super-extrapolation" where a guy who hit really well over 30 AB gets those stats extrapolated for the whole side, stringing it out to 150 AB. (2) DMB handles batting playing time by "% starting" which basically is that person's chance out of 100 that they will start at a given time. I am leaving the percentages up to you. If you want to set everyone at 100%, you are free to do that. HOWEVER . . . (3) After each week's worth of games, I deactivate any batter who exceeds their playing time. The maximum any player is allowed to reach is *110%* of their real life plaffng time. Players who burn out may have a burnout replacement player signed in their place without penalty (although if the replacement player wasn't kept prior to the season's draft or drafted, he can't be kept after the season). ADDENDUM TO WEEKLY CHECK: In addition to the weekly check, I may (and probably will) check more frequently in the final games of the season. (4) For pitchers, batters faced are used. When they exceed their batters faced, they are deactivated similar to batters. Batters faced is somewhat proportional to innings pitched. The maximum playing time %age for pitchers is *110%* of their real life playing time, just like batters. (5) You may have either a 4-man or a 5-man rotation. Beware, however, as burning out your staff early could lead to a situation where you have to use a bunch of 7.00 ERA scrubs. You may have three different ways to handle pitchers: Time, Skip, Straight. Time is where the starters are based on the # of starts they had in real life, and gave those with more starts larger proportion of the total starts. Note: You can change the number of starts that a pitcher has so that he starts more or less than what he did in real life, so if you have a 15 games started guy that you don't want starting at all, you can set him to 0 games started. Skip will go through your rotation straight until there is an off-day, in which case it will jump up to your highest starter. Straight will just go 1-2-3-4-5-1-2-3-4-5-etc-etc. Again, the best advice is to pace your guys, so that you don't run into burnout problems early. There is also the option to have spot starters, which start a certain % of the time in a particular pitching spot (such as the #5 pitching slot). But spot starting is only good for the Skip & Straight option. (6) All players with 15 or more IP may be mentioned in the pitching profile during the regular season. (7) Batters may start any %age of the time throughout the season. Any batter may be listed in the "platoon", "defensive replacement", or "pinch hit" role. (8) All owners will have to do their own depth charts. I won't allow people to use the computer generated ones. This is to try and get as few teams on autopilot as possible. (9) If a player is burnt out, you are able to sign someone to temporarily take his place. If your team makes the playoffs, you will have to specify who is on your 33 man playoff roster. All excess is inelligible for the rest of the playoffs (but may be protected for next season). Players who burn out are still elligible to be kept after the season (provided they were elligible to be kept in the first place). (10) This is just a general plea: Don't try to abuse the playing time, by trying to burn out as many people as possible. Try to pace your guys, so that the workload is reduced for both of us. (11) In reference to part 10, the maximum # of burnouts & active players is 60. This isn't something I can change, as this is the max # of slots DMB will allow me. If you are at the #60 mark and you need someone to satisfy your team minimums, you will have to waive or trade multiple guys for someone to make room. 10. TEAM MINIMUMS: Each team needs between 25 and 33 active players. At the beginning of the season, each team must have at least 550 total AB for each position, at the same time other positions have 550 total AB. This (sort of) insures that you'll have enough at bats for the whole season. In addition, at the beginning of the season you need 4770 total team AB. At the beginning of the season, you need 1450 total team IP. Figure around 965 IP for starters, but I won't be measuring that. At the beginning of the season, you also need at least 12 pitchers and 6 players who are elligible to be starters. I won't be gauging these minimums as the season progresses, but it is vital that all teams meet these minimums at the beginning of the season. For batters, you may "split" someone's at bats to cover the minimum. For instance, say you have 500 at bats each for 2nd, SS, 3B, LF, CF, and RF. Let's also say you have Tony Phillips, and say that he played all these positions, and that he has 300 AB. Divide the at bats by 6, add 50 to each position, and you've qualified for those positions. You also need at least two players per fielding position *AT ALL TIMES*. This also includes replacing people who have burned out. This basically means having one starter and at least one in utility. The utility guy will come in case something happens to the starting batter (such as being taken out for a pinch hitter or pinch runner). Any team that fails to maintain the two elligible players per fielding position will have players assigned to their teams in order to meet this requirement. During the season: * You need at least 4 elligible starting pitchers at all times. * You need at least 10 elligible pitchers at all times. * You need at least 25 total active players at all times. * You need to have 8 active people in the batting lineup at all times. * You need at least 2 elligible players fielding at each batting position If any of the above minimums are not met, you must sign replacement players to meet the minimums. If you fail to do this, the commish will be forced to do it for you. Any signees the commish makes (due to a team not responding) will be for the player of the commish's choosing. Usually this is the best guy for the job, but be warned that the commish also has a special fondness for Nelson Liriano and Jim Acker. :) 11. MAKING YOUR OWN BATTING DEPTH CHART: The batting depth chart works like this: There's a starter, and up to 5 utility players. The DMB program limits the playing time of the starter by playing the reserves a certain %age of the time. So, in effect, there are 100 points per position (with 1 point being a 1% chance to start, and 100 being 100% chance to start all games). There is seperate depth charts for left handed pitchers, and right handed pitchers. You can also have defensive replacements and platoon guys (who come in if a other-handed reliever comes in) 12. AFTER THE SEASON (AND POST-SEASON) This is the keeper scheme: (1).Everyone gets $26. Players are worth according to how long its been since they've been drafted. (2).The # of keeper spots a player is worth goes by the following criteria: 1 year after they are drafted - $1 2 years after they were drafted - $2 3 years and on after they were drafted - $3 What this means is that in normal years a team gets two full years from the time they are drafted before the players start costing more money. (Assuming the player had a full rookie season, which isn't always the case). The only players elligible to be kept are those who were kept from the previous season or those who were drafted. Free agent signings after the draft and burnout signees (who were not drafted) are not elligible to be kept. The only way that a person's keeper price can change is if they are released into the free agent pool at the end of the year to be drafted. Once a player is drafted, their value returns to that listed in #2 above. Trading away players does not affect the dollar values of players involved. It only transfers their values to another team. Waiving a person in-season doesn't change their value either, unless they wind up being in the next draft. (2.5) You may trade up to 2 of your $3 salary slots, or $6 of your salary cap. The timeliness of these two are the same as for draft picks. If we are in the offseason right before the 1987 season, then you can trade slots and $$ from either the 1987 season or 1988 season. (3).There are several constraints to the salary cap: * 20 maximum people are keepable from year to year * 5,000 max AB transferrable from one year to the next (batters only). * 1,600 IP/175 games started max transferrable from one year to the next. * 5 players maximum kept with a $3 salary (4). You may switch to any ballpark that isn't taken in the off-season. For those who have ballparks that are no longer in use, they have first dibs on the "new" ballpark. (Such as with Old Commisky-New Commisky). FREE AGENT DRAFT: Before each season, a free agent draft will be held. All players not protected after the season who made an appearance in the year of the draft are elligible to be kept. In order to encourage people to upkeep their teams, and to partially avoid teams ditching it when they have no hope to qualify for the playoffs, there is a special order to the draft. Teams who lose 95 games or more will get the top draft spots based on most losses. After these teams, the draft order will be ranked in order of wins without making the playoffs. Thus, if, in a league where nobody lost 95 games, the team with the best record without making the playoffs would get the #1 pick. If, however, 5 teams had 95 or more losses, the team with the best record without making the playoffs gets the #6 pick. Teams that make the playoff will be ranked in order of losses (such that the team with the best overall record gets the last pick in each round). IMHO a team has to be truly bad to lose 95 or more games. This does create an interesting dilemma for teams who wish to dump. Dumping can get you draft picks or players, but a lower record gets you a worse draft spot. It also means that even if you are not in the playoffs, you will have to pay attention to your team. IV. OTHER RULES 1. This is probably the most important rule: Obey the spirit of the game as well as the rules. I reserve the right to stop something in progress if it is detrimental to the league's integrity. I do reserve the right to change the rules, but I try not to leave people up the creek without a paddle. 2. When a person is a new owner of a team, I reserve the right to allow the person to reverse the deal if I feel they made the deal under false assumptions or similar "newbieness". As soon as I feel they're up to speed (probably a couple weeks) then they're on their own. :) It is in the original owners' best interests to make sure the new owners understand the quirks & workings of the league when making deals. 3. No collusion between owners. (IE-two or more owners whose sole goal is to pool the resources of several teams to get a juggernaut). Guilty parties will be forced to have Luis Rivera as their cleanup hitter and Storm Davis as their ace. (IE-big trouble.) 4. Trades only become valid after *BOTH* parties tell me of their trade. If a trade causes a team to go over the 33 man limit or under the 25 man minimum the team owner in question must either cut players or sign players to meet the limits. 5. If you waive someone, you may not re-sign that player until 2 full game weeks have passed (IE-if you waive someone during week 3, you can't re-sign them until week 5, where the beginning of the week is the moment after I post the weekly deluge of stats). This allows for other teams to have a shot at signing that player, as well as making it a lot easier on the commish. 6. When trading draft picks, you are limited to trading a maximum of 5 draft picks per season (no matter how many picks you get in return). You can only trade picks for the current or next year. The beginning of the game year is defined as the day immediately after the world series. You may also not trade any picks lower than the 10th round. 7. Some rules stated above appear twice. I just like repeating myself. :) There also may be some inconsistent rules, which happens when I forget to modify the right places. If all else fails, ask. 8. When making changes to your managerial profile, please list only the changes, and do not upload the whole thing. The less work I have to do, the more accurate I will be in making your changes for you. 9. Most importantly, this league is for fun. I don't charge anything for it. I am willing to listen to suggestions, and if I like them enough I'd probably implement them. Also remember that on occasion I will be late with the results, etc, and the sometimes the mail will get lost along the way. Good luck to everyone, and may the the best team win! If you have any comments, suggestions, modifications or clarifications on these rules please feel free to e-mail me.