Official Constitution Of The Full Monty Fantasy Baseball League

Preamble

We, The People of the Full Monty Fantasy Baseball League, in order to form a more perfect League, hereby declare David Justice a free agent, kiss domestic Tranquillity good-bye, promote the general Welfare in cities like Pittsburgh and Montreal, and secure the Blessings of our lost puberty, to ourselves and those that have gone before, do ordain and establish this Constitution for The Full Monty Fantasy Baseball League, and also finish this run-on sentence.

I. Object

To assemble a lineup of National and/or American League baseball players whose cumulative statistics during the regular season, compiled and measured by the methods described in these rules, exceed those of all other teams in the league.

II. Teams

· The Full Monty Fantasy Baseball League shall consist of 16 teams with each team’s roster being made up of the required number of active players, and as injuries occur, a reserve list of injured players, acquired according to the Draft Day rules set forth below and being drawn from a pool of ALL current major league players.

· From Opening Day until September 1^st a team must have 23 players on it’s active roster at all times, after September 1^st and through the remainder of the season, a team may have no less than 23 and no more than 28 players on it’s active roster at any given time.

· The number of players on a team’s active roster must be at the required level and positional integrity must be intact after the completion of any transaction.

III. Roster

A team’s active roster consists of the following players:

· 2 Catchers

· 1 First Baseman

· 1 Second Baseman

· 1 Shortstop

· 1 Third Baseman

· 1 Corner Infielder (either a First OR Third Baseman)

· 1 Middle Infielder (either a Second Baseman OR Shortstop)

· 5 Outfielders

· 1 Utility (may qualify at ANY non-pitching position, including DH)

· 9 Pitchers

and after September 1^st

· up to 5 additional players of any positional makeup

Positional integrity shall be considered met when the allocation of all of a team’s active players among eligible positions meet the above requirements.

A player may only appear on one team’s roster (active and reserve) at one time but may appear on multiple team rosters during the course of the season as a result of trades and waiver transactions.

IV. The Draft

· The order of drafting in the first round will be determined by random draw approximately one week prior to Draft Day.

· This order will hold for the odd rounds of the draft (1^st, 3^rd, 5^th, etc.) and will reverse for the even rounds of the draft (2^nd, 4^th, 6^th, etc.). That is, the team with the 1^st overall pick in the draft will pick first in the first round but last in the 2^nd round and 1^st again in the 3^rd round. Conversely the team picking last in the first round will pick 1^st in the 2^nd round and last in the 3^rd round. Essentially a “snaking” draft order will occur, 1 through 16 in round 1, 16 back to 1 in round 2 and so on…

· Each round a team may select one player from the pool of available players to fill a position on the team roster that remains open.

· Players drafted who end up being released, sent to the minors or put on the DL before Opening Day can be replaced free of charge before Opening Day. A $1.00 fee is assessed if the owner wishes to place this released or injured player on the team’s Reserve List.

· The Draft shall be considered complete when every team has 23 players on it’s active roster.

V. Position Eligibility

· A player may be assigned to any position at which he appeared in 20 or more games in the preceding season. If a player did not appear in 20 games at a single position, he may be drafted only at the position at which he appeared most frequently. If a player has appeared in the same number of games at two or more positions, but not in 20 games at any of them, that player is eligible at ALL positions in which he has played that maximum number of games. For example, a player plays 7 games at 3B, 7 games in the OF and 3 games at 1B. That player qualifies as a 3B or an OF.

· The 20 game/most games rule is used only to determine the position(s) at which a player may be drafted. Once the season is under way, a player becomes eligible for assignment to any position at which he has appeared in at least five games. Any player from any position may occupy the Utility position on a teams active roster but the Utility position is the ONLY position a player who qualifies exclusively as a DH may occupy.

VI. Fees

The entry fee for entering a team into The Full Monty Fantasy Baseball League shall be $20. That is, each team will leave the draft with a balance of $20. During the season fees shall be assessed for common transactions. All fees go into the Prize Pool and are paid out after the season to the top teams in the standings. See Prize Money section for more details. The fees are as follows:

Entry Fee: $20.00 per team after drafting 23 active players

Injury Transactions:

· $1.00 to place the injured player on team’s Reserve List and add another player from the Free Agent pool or activate a player from the Reserve List in his place.

· $1.00 to drop an injured or released player and replace him with another player without placing the injured player on team’s Reserve List

· $1.00 to bring a player back to the Active Roster from the Reserve List and drop an active player.

· There is no fee to drop a player from a team’s Reserve List.

Performance

Transactions: $2.00 to drop a non-injured player and add a player from the Free Agent pool.

Trades: $1.00 per team, regardless of how many players are involved

Roster

Expansion: $5.00 (see Roster Expansion section later)

See the Transaction sections for more details on each type of transaction.

VII. Prize Money

All fees shall be paid promptly at the end of the season to the League Treasurer, who is empowered by The League to do anything in his power to assure that all fees are paid in a timely fashion. The money shall then be divided up among the teams as follows:

Any team leading the league in a particular category (see Standings section for category list) shall be awarded $5 extra for each category led.

Additionally, prizes will be awarded according to Final Standings:

1^st Place - 40% of prize fund (after category prizes)

2^nd Place - 25%

3^rd Place - 15%

4^th Place - 10%

5^th Place - 5%

6^th Place - 3%

7^th Place - 2%

VIII. Standings

The following criteria are used to determine team performance:

BATTING

· Composite batting average (BA)

· Total home runs (HR)

· Total runs batted in (RBI)

· Total stolen bases (SB)

· Total runs scored (R)

PITCHING

· Composite earned run average (ERA)

· Total wins (W)

· Total saves (S)

· Composite ratio: (base on balls (BB) + hits allowed (H) ) / innings pitched (IP)

· Total strikeouts (K)

Teams are ranked from first to last in each of the ten categories and given points for each place. For example, in a ten team league, the first place team in a category receives ten points, the second place team nine, and so on down to one point for last place. The team with the most points at the end of the season wins the league. Point totals do not accumulate from week to week but rather are recalculated each week based on each team’s cumulative totals. For example, a team that has 49 points in one week and 47 the next has a point total of 47, the latest recalculation, NOT 96 (the total of the two weeks).

THE IP REQUIREMENT: At the end of the season, a team that does not pitch a total of at least 900 innings cannot be ranked ahead of any team that does pitch over 900 innings, in either the ERA or Ratio categories and will be re-ranked accordingly.

THE AB REQUIREMENT: At the end of the season, a team that does not have a total of at least 4250 at-bats cannot be ranked ahead of any team that does have over 4250 at-bats, in the Batting Average category and will be re-ranked accordingly.

· Pitchers’ offensive statistics are not counted, nor are the pitching statistics of the occasional position player called in to pitch when the score is 16 - 1 after five innings and the relief corps is hiding under the stands.

· In cases of ties in an individual category, the tied teams are assigned points by totaling points for the rankings at issue and dividing the total by the number of teams tied. For example if two teams in a ten team league tie for 1^st and 2^nd in Home Runs, the point values for those two spots (10 and 9 points) would be totaled (19) and then divided by the number of tied teams (2) with each team getting in this case, 9 ½ points.

· In cases of ties in total points at the end of the season, prize money will be split accordingly.

· From time to time it may become necessary to determine who is the “lower team in the standings” when a tie occurs, usually for player allocation when two teams request the same player in a given week. All ties for places in the standings are determined by comparing placements of teams in individual categories. Respective performances are calculated and a point given to each team for bettering the other in each of the categories. Should one team total more points than the other by this method, that team is given the higher position (worse pick). Should, after that, the point totals still be equal, the tie is broken by adding each team’s total at-bats, plus triple the number of it’s innings pitched. The team that scores a higher total by this measure gets the lower position (better pick). If it comes to this, you get rewarded for having guys who play regularly.

IX. Statistics

The weekly player performance summaries (a.k.a statistics, or just plain “stats” for short) compiled by Stats, Inc. and obtained through feeds from FanGraphs every Tuesday morning shall be considered the Official Statistics for computation of standings in The Full Monty Fantasy Baseball League.

· The effective date of any transaction for the purposes of statistical calculation is the next Tuesday on or following the day of the transaction. Weekly statistics shall consist of a player’s statistics for games played from Tuesday to Monday. For example, if you pick up a player on Thursday, you don’t get his statistics (or lose the dropped players statistics) until the next Tuesday. The absolute deadline for acquiring players is before the first pitch is thrown in the first game on Tuesday night or 8PM, whichever comes earlier. Any players taken on Tuesday morning will be eligible for statistics starting that night. All owners are responsible for knowing when the first game takes place on a given Tuesday and making sure their transactions are in by then.

· Transactions recorded on Draft Day and before Opening Day, including trades and call-ups to replace injured or farmed out players, are effective Opening Day. Transactions occurring during the week after Opening Day will be effective the first Tuesday after Opening Day.

· Any transactions made during the All Star Break become active immediately following the All Star Game, usually that Thursday. During All Star Week the weekly statistics will be calculated on Wednesday or Thursday night (the days following the game) instead of the usual Tuesday. All Star stats do not count in a fantasy team’s totals.

· Any player on a fantasy team roster cut from a major league roster between Draft Day and Opening Day may be replaced at no charge on a first come, first served basis with a player from the Free Agent Pool.

· Performance statistics of a player shall be assigned to a team only when that player is on the active 23 man roster of that team. It is common for a player to appear on the roster of more than one fantasy team during the season because of trades and waiver moves. Even a player who is not traded may spend time on a team’s reserve list, during which period any numbers he might compile for his major league team do not count for his fantasy team.

· Once a player is dropped from the active roster, any statistics accumulated while on the active roster stay with that fantasy team’s cumulative totals. Likewise, any player added to a roster does not bring his previous totals with him.

· League statistics will be calculated on a weekly basis, usually Tuesday night, and consist of all statistics from the previous week’s (Tuesday through Monday) games.

· The league stats will be delivered by e-mail or will be available for viewing and download on the league’s web site at HTTP://WWW.COMMISH.COM, usually on Tuesday night. From time to time it may become necessary to delay the delivery of stats until Tuesday night or later in the week. In that case, the league will be notified and all moves must still be in by the usual Tuesday deadline (before the first game of the day begins).

X. Transactions

In general there are three types of player transactions that can be made:

1. an injury transaction,

2. a performance transaction,

3. or a trade.

During the first half of the season (up until The All Star Game) the only type of transactions allowed will be trades and injury transactions. After the All Star Break, all types of transactions will be allowed.

XI. Injury Transactions

An injury transaction is one that involves a player who has been:

1. placed on the Disabled List by his major league team,

2. released from pro ball (a.k.a. unconditionally released),

3. sent down to the minors,

4. traded to the Japanese League,

5. retires,

6. or dies in mid-season (R.I.P. Darryl Kile)

· To replace such a player, a team must either a)release this player outright from it’s roster or b) place the player on it’s reserve list. In either case, the team is now free to choose any player from the Free Agent Pool to replace the injured (or farmed out) player, so long as the effect of placing the free agent on the active roster does not result in a loss of positional integrity. For example, if a team’s outfielder gets injured, that team can replace him with another outfielder from the Free Agent Pool, OR if an infielder on the active roster is also eligible as an outfielder then that infielder can be shifted into the injured player’s outfield position and an infielder from the Free Agent Pool can be added to the active roster.

· There is no limit on the number of players a team may have on it’s reserved list at one time.

· Once the injured or farmed out player becomes available again (he comes off the DL or gets called back to the majors), provided he has been put on his team’s reserve list, he can then be placed back onto the active roster at ANY position that he qualifies for, not necessarily the position he was in before the injury, there is no “linking” of injured players to their replacements. The player whose roster spot the uninjured player assumes must be dropped back into the Free Agent Pool, unless an injury to that player allows him to be put on the team’s reserve list.

· A team has two weeks from the time that a player retains active status (comes off DL, gets called up, etc.) to reinstate him to the active roster. Failure to do so in the two week time period will result in the player being dropped back into the Free Agent Pool. The two week period is not an absolute “14 day” period. The perhaps inappropriately named “two week period” shall begin the day the player is officially removed from the Disabled List or called up by their major league team (available in Baseball Weekly and other fine publications or Web sites like ESPN.COM and Rotoworld.com) and shall end on the first Tuesday (the transaction deadline day) on or following the 14^th day after the “two week” period begins. Should conflicting transaction dates appear, The Commissioner reserves the right to decide when the “two week” period should begin by using the date listed in USA Today’s Baseball Weekly publication as the “official” transaction date.

· Should two teams wish to claim the same player from the Free Agent Pool in the same week, the team with the lowest current position in the overall standings shall be awarded the player. This rule will be in effect for the entire season.

· A team need not replace an injured or farmed out player immediately, an injury transaction can be made at any time so long as the player is on the Disabled List or in the minors (or both!) at the time of the transaction.

· A suspended player can be dropped but not reserved.

· The fee for making an injury transaction is $1.00 regardless of whether or not you choose to place the injured player on your Reserve List. After the reserved player comes off the DL or gets recalled back to the majors, there is an additional $1 fee to re-instate him onto your active roster. There is no fee if you decide to drop the player from your team’s Reserve List.

· There is no limit to the number of injury transactions a team may make in a season.

· Statistics for the newly acquired player begin accruing on the games of the first Tuesday on or following the transaction date. The statistics (if any) for the dropped/reserved player will keep accruing until such a time as the newly acquired player’s statistics kick in.

· Once a player has been dropped back into the Free Agent Pool, that player must remain there until the next transaction period so that every owner has the opportunity to acquire the dropped player if they so desire. For example, a team drops Barry Bonds (!?) on Thursday of a given week. No team may pick up Bonds until after the next Tuesday so that the drop may show up in the weekly stats and everyone has knowledge that Bonds is now a free agent. Of course in this case, a feeding frenzy will ensue, but we’ll let The Commissioner handle those!

· You may only make one move per player per week. A player cannot be put on the Reserve List and brought back off the Reserve List in the same week. A player may also not be acquired in a trade and then immediately dropped to make room for another player. Nor may a player be traded to more than one team in the same week, unless a separate “three way” swap can be arranged and agreed upon by all the owners involved. An example of this rule prevents owners from reserving an injured player on Tuesday, adding a new guy on Monday, reactivating the now uninjured player on Thursday and dropping a player other than the one added on Tuesday. You also cannot pick up an injured player, immediately reserve him and then add another player in the vacated spot. If a player is hurt and returns in the same week, or comes off the DL and goes back on in the same week, you can only make on move with that player for that week.

· Two exceptions to the “one move per player per week” rule, both involving injured players, are:

(1). Any injured players drafted on Draft Day may be reserved and replaced immediately after the Draft or before Opening Day.

(2). At any time during the season any injured players acquired from another team’s active roster may be reserved by the acquiring team the same week of the trade and another free agent picked up as a replacement for the injured player.

· A player may be brought back to the Active Roster from the Reserve List at any time in anticipation of that player returning from injury in the middle of the next statistics week. For example, the deadline for transactions is Tuesday and you read that your star outfielder is coming off the DL on the next Wednesday. You may elect to bring your injured player back to the Active Roster early, before he comes off the DL (the usual $1.00 fee applies, of course) so that you won’t “miss” a half week’s worth of statistics for that player. Of course, the player you decide to drop from the roster to make room for the injured player may do more in a full week than the injured player could do in a half week, or it can happen the other way. You make the call. HOWEVER, should the injured player not return as expected, you CANNOT place that player back on the Reserve List unless he comes off the DL, appears in a box score or is officially added to the 25 man roster, and then re-injures himself. After the All Star Break, you can make up for your mistake by burning one of your scarcely allotted Performance Transactions should you have any left. And remember, you are not allowed to make a performance transaction during the first half of the season, so should you bring back an injured player prematurely and he get hurt again before returning, that roster spot is “frozen” until such time that you can make a performance transaction.

· See the Trades section for additional rules involving reserving and reactivating injured players acquired in trades the same week they’re acquired.

XII. Performance Transactions

A performance transaction occurs when a team decides to make a change to the active roster for reasons other than those described in the Injury Transaction section above. A pitcher who isn’t playing well but is still chewing up innings and needs to be replaced before skyrocketing your ERA into the stratosphere is an example of a performance transaction.

· To replace such a player, a team must release this player outright from it’s roster. The team is now free to choose any player from the Free Agent Pool to replace the ineffective player, so long as the effect of placing the free agent on the active roster does not result in a loss of positional integrity. For example, if a team decides to drop an outfielder, that team can replace him with another outfielder from the Free Agent Pool, OR if an infielder on the active roster is also eligible as an outfielder then that infielder can be shifted into the injured player’s outfield position and an infielder from the Free Agent Pool can be added to the active roster.

· There will be NO performance transactions allowed during the first half of the season. That means the only way you can replace a player is through an injury transaction up until the All Star Break.

· After the All Star Break, a team may make a maximum of 15 performance transactions the rest of the season (so use them wisely!). Any trades, injury transactions and/or roster expansions are not included in this total.

· A suspended player can be dropped but not reserved.

· There is a $2.00 fee assessed for making a performance transaction.

· Statistics for the newly acquired player begin accruing on the games of the first Tuesday on or following the transaction date. The statistics (if any) for the dropped player will keep accruing until such a time as the newly acquired player’s statistics kick in.

· Again, just like with Injury Transactions, you may only make one move per player per week. See the Injury Transactions section above for more clarification of this rule. Also, eee the Trades section for additional rules involving reserving and reactivating injured players acquired in trades the same week they’re acquired.

XIII. The “Lower Team In The Standings Rule”

Should two teams wish to claim the same player from the Free Agent Pool in the same week, the team with the lowest current position in the overall standings shall be awarded the player. This rule will be in effect for the entire season.

· The “current standings” are defined as the standings currently available on the league web site BEFORE any stats calculation occurs on Tuesday night, not the standings as they will look after all the transactions are given out, that week’s stats are calculated, and new standings posted based on those calculations. This is done because all transaction claims are allocated before beginning any stats calculations and so that every owner has common knowledge of where he stands and who might be picking ahead of him and can plan that week’s transaction strategy accordingly.

· Under this rule each team will be allowed to acquire only one player at a time. By that I mean the last place team in the standings can not claim five players in a week and expect to get them all by virtue of this rule. That would make it virtually impossible for the higher teams to get anyone at all.

· Whenever a team sends in a transaction involving a player from the Free Agent Pool be sure to include a couple of alternate selections as well in case you get “bumped” by teams lower than you in the standings. When making multiple transactions in a given week be sure to state the “priority” of each as well as this will also determine whom you get should another team, or teams, claim the same player.

· All players claimed during a particular week will be allocated one at a time starting with the lowest claiming team getting it’s first choice, then the second lowest team getting their highest available choice and so on until each team requesting a new player has one. If extra “rounds” become necessary to fill teams’ multiple claims, the lowest team still needing a player will get it’s next highest available claim and so on until everyone’s roster is complete once again.

· Injury and performance transactions carry the same weight. A team needing to replace an injured player will be given no preference, other than standings rank, over a team wishing to replace an ineffective player.

· If due to “bumping” or a lack of alternates a team does not have another choice available The Commissioner will do everything in his power to attempt to contact that team and obtain another choice. Should the inability to contact the team (owner is currently on Safari in The Congo) cause an inadequate delay in the distribution of the remaining players, or “spill over” into the start of a new transaction period (Tuesday), that team will be forced to keep that player until the next transaction period begins (the following Tuesday).

· If two teams that are tied in the standings request the same player in a given week the tie shall be broken by comparing placements of teams in each of the individual categories. Respective performances are calculated and a point given to each team for bettering the other in each of the categories. Should one team total more points than the other by this method, that team is given the higher position (worse pick). Should, after that, the point totals still be equal, the tie is broken by adding each team’s total at-bats, plus triple the number of it’s innings pitched. The team that scores a higher total by this measure gets the lower position (better pick). In this case, you get rewarded for having guys who play regularly.

· All moves made after the Draft and prior to Opening Day are 1^st come, 1^st served.

· During the first week of the season, when no “current (last week’s) standings” are available, reverse draft order will serve as the way of determining whose Week 2 transactions get preference. That is, the team with the 16^th pick in the draft gets preference over the team that picked 8^th, etc.

XIV. Free Agent Pool

The Free Agent Pool is defined as any players currently on a major league roster or the Disabled List that are not a part of any fantasy team’s active roster or reserve list. Minor leaguers are not considered free agents although a minor leaguer may reside on an active roster or reserve list if he was on a major league roster at one time and through owner neglect, or should I say strategy, he is still on a fantasy team.

THE HIDEKI IRABU RULE: Any minor leaguer not on a 25 man roster, unsigned, foreign or otherwise free agent player who is not currently on a major league team’s 25 man roster or that team’s Disabled List is NOT considered a free agent and as such, cannot be picked up from the Free Agent Pool until such time as they meet the proper requirements.

THE MARK PRIOR RULE: For drafts held well before Opening Day, when 25 man rosters have not been set, any minor leaguers not officially “sent down” to their team’s minor league camp are considered active and draftable. If they should then get sent down after the Draft, the usual pre-Opening Day transaction rules will apply.

XV. Trades

· From the completion of the Draft until July 31^st, fantasy league teams are free to make trades of any kind without limit except as follows: so long as the active rosters of both teams involved in a trade reflect the required position distribution upon completion of the transaction and the number of active players changing sides on each team is equal, the trade is considered a valid trade. For example, if Team A wants to swap Larry Walker to Team B for Gregg Maddux then Team A will have to throw in a pitcher and Team B an outfielder to make the deal valid.

· THE ANTI-FIRE SALE RULE: From July 31 to August 31, trades may take place ONLY between teams that are within three positions of each other in the standings. That is, a 5^th place team may trade with any team from 2^nd through 8^th, the last place team only with the three teams above his, etc.

· THE ANTI-FIRE SALE EXCEPTION: From July 31 to August 31, teams that are “out of the money” (8^th through 16^th places) may trade freely without restrictions amongst themselves without worrying about the “three places in the standings” rule.

· No trades will be allowed after September 1^st.

· There is no limit to the number of trades a team may make in a season.

· Trades involving players from a team’s reserve list need not meet positional requirements or numerical equivalencies. That is, Team A can trade two reserve outfielders for Team B’s reserved pitcher and shortstop, or just the shortstop.

· You may also “throw in” players from your Reserve List in a trade in order to sweeten the pot, thus making a trade “uneven” in numbers (i.e. 4-for-3), so long as the number of active (non reserved) players remains equal.

· There is a $1.00 fee assessed to each team for the trade regardless of the number of players involved. A one-for-one swap costs just as much as a four-for-four swap.

· Trading of unused performance transactions is not allowed, nor are any cash or other “future considerations” allowed. All trades must be strictly player(s) for player(s).

· Again, just like with Injury Transactions, you may only make one move per player per week. A player may not be traded to more than one team in a given week unless a separate “three way” deal can be arranged and agreed upon by all owners involved. See the Injury Transactions section above for more clarification of this rule.

· One exception to the “one move per player per week” rule is that any inured players acquired from another team’s active roster may be reserved by the acquiring team the same week of the trade and another free agent picked up as a replacement for the injured player.

Trades involving players on both the active roster and the reserve list are subject to the following rules:

· In the first half of the season: A player cannot move from the reserve list of one team to the active roster of another unless an injury provides an opening. That is, players traded from an active roster must remain on the acquiring team’s active roster and players traded from a reserve list must remain on the acquiring team’s reserve list. Once acquired, a new reserve player can then be moved to the active roster only as a result of an injury to someone on the Active Roster after the trade is complete. If two weeks (i.e. “14 days rule”) pass and no one on the Active Roster gets hurt to make room, then the reserved player acquired by trade will be dropped back into the Free Agent Pool. The purpose of this rule is so that you cannot dump an under-performing player in the first half by trading for another team’s injured players.

· After the All Star Break: After a trade is completed, the players changing teams may reside on either the acquiring team’s active roster OR reserve list, provided that all positional requirements are met after the dust clears. Moves from the reserve list to the active roster as result of a trade WILL NOT count against a team’s allotted total of 15 performance transactions. All trades of this variety must involve an equal number of active players on both sides and maintain positional integrity.

· If a player does remain on the acquiring team’s reserve list after a trade, the “two week” rule still applies to that player. All the “uninjured” time accumulated while the player was on his former team carries over. The acquiring team doesn’t get an extra two weeks to reactivate him to their active roster.

· Per the “one move per player per week” rule you cannot drop players acquired in trades the same week in which you acquire them. You must hold all players acquired in trades at least one week. Three-way trades are allowed per the previously outlined rules.

· However, in the 2^nd half of the season, within the same transaction week, you can reserve injured players acquired by trade from another team’s active roster and conversely you may also activate (un-reserve) players acquired by trade from another team’s reserve list where eligible. You cannot re-activate one player acquired by trade from a team’s reserve list and in order to make room for that player on the active roster, drop a player acquired in the same trade and/or week.

XVI. September Roster Expansion

On the first Tuesday following September 1^st a team may choose to participate in the September Roster Expansion. The rules of The Expansion are as follows:

· A team can add up to 5 more players from the free agent pool to bring their roster total up to 28 through a “reverse order of standings draft”. Everyone wishing to add free agents at this time will submit their lists to The Commissioner on or before Sept 1^st. The list will include the order of preference and the number of players needed along with any special instructions necessary to acquire said players (i.e. 3 pitchers and 2 batters, if I get this guy, don’t take this one, et al) The Commissioner will then assemble all the lists and proceed to have a mini draft, with the lowest participating team in the standings getting the first pick in each round and the highest team the last, until all lists are exhausted and/or rosters are filled.

· A team may opt to call up to the active roster any and all players currently on the reserve list. These count as part of your 5 player total and will be considered a team’s “last moves”, that is, they will not be done until after the expansion allocation draft has taken place.

· The Expansion Draft will be held at The Commissioner’s convenience on the weekend prior to the first Tuesday on or after September 1^st. Any owners wishing to participate by phone, Internet chat or in person may do so, the others have the option of sending in lists as described above.

· A team may add no more than 5 extra players to their active roster, this total includes any reserves that are called up. These 5 extra players may be a mix of any positions.

· After expansion, the usual rules then apply for injury and performance transactions provided minimum position requirements are met. Week to week, you can drop a player and not add another provided your roster total stays above 23 and positional integrity is maintained. You can also add another and not drop if your roster total is under 28. Remember all non injury transactions will count against your limit of 15 for the season. The usual fees still apply.

· You can drop a pitcher and add a batter or vice-versa and so long as positional integrity is met, you may move players from your expansion list to your original 23 man roster and back as the rules permit.

· The cost for this “smorgasbord of fun” is an additional $5. This is a “one-time” fee and is just a straight $5 regardless of the number of players added, not $5 per player.

· Any teams choosing not to participate in the expansion will still be able to make transactions according to the prescribed rules and at any time after September 1^st may “expand” for an additional $5, subject to all the above Expansion rules.

· For the remainder of the season after roster expansion, starting with the next Tuesday, eligible transactions for any team participating in the Roster Expansion will be free for the rest of the season. Other, non-participating teams may make moves as well, subject to the usual fees.

XVII. Governance

At such times that it becomes necessary to make a rules interpretation The Commissioner’s word will be FINAL. Of course, after rendering such finality, The Commissioner is open to all impeachment proceedings and other acts of subjugation that may undercut his authority. So in the interest of fairness (not to mention keeping my body intact), The Commissioner reserves the right to form a Committee to handle any disputes that may arise. The Committee will then take a vote, with the majority ruling becoming law. The Committee shall consist of The Commissioner, and all other league owners who are not currently involved in the dispute at hand and would care to vote on it. In the event of a tie vote, The Commissioner will have the final say.

XVIII. Yoo-Hoo or not Yoo-Hoo?

That is the question. In the old days, it was customary for the winner of a Rotisserie Baseball League to have a bottle (or two) of Yoo-Hoo poured over his head. The League Formerly Known As Monty Burns did it. The old Mid-Atlantic Rotisserie League did not. I for one, have experienced The Chocolate Goo first hand and can say that the only thing that I can compare it to is the feeling one gets when one bites into a York Peppermint Patty! The disgusting, archaic and sometimes downright cruel practice of “Yoo Hooing” the league champion is hereby banned. Anyone caught in the act of “Yoo Hooing” a former champion shall be immediately and severely punished by a method to be determined at the time of sentencing by a committee of his peers!

XIX. Season to Season

The Full Monty Fantasy Baseball League shall not be a “keeper” league. That is all players will be thrown back into the free agent pool at the end of the season and be available for drafting by all teams the following season.

XX. Amendments To The Constitution

Any changes to these rules must be made by a majority vote of all active members of The Full Monty Fantasy Baseball League at the time the amendment is proposed, preferably in the off season. In no way, shape or form shall The Commissioner have any weight in this vote. One more than half will make it a rule, provided it's something doable and technically feasible that is. So sayeth the Shepherd…