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Jan 24th
1932 draft changes

Jan 24th
Update on managerial changes

Jan 19th
Constitution change

Jan 4th
1952 Pre-season prognosis

Dec 21st
New Manager for 1932

Oct 30th
SPB-32 Files and notes

Oct 30th
Overusage penalty change

Sep 1st
August DMB newsletter

Jul 6th
July DMB newsletter

December 12, 2004
Expansion managers needed for SPB-1
FRANKFORT, IN - All Seasons Past Baseball Managers, Due to more rigid regulations being enforced regarding player overusage, I have decided to change the restrictions on bringing rookie players into the SPB Leagues. From now on, in order for a player or pitcher to qualify in any season as a rookie, at least one of the following criteria has to be met: 15 Games Played, 15 At Bats, or 15 Innings Pitched. This should provide a handfull of extra players into each rookie draft. The League Constitution will be updated with this new rookie information very soon. This will go into effect in all SPB Leagues immediately.

October 23, 2004
Expansion managers needed for SPB-1
FRANKFORT, IN - I am sending this message out to all SPB Leagues in a hunt to fill four expansion openings in SPB I that will happen in the 1969 season. SPB I is currently in the middle of the 1967 season, which will end in December. So it is now time to start working on naming the managers for the four expansion teams, and getting the expansion draft completed.

Here is how it will work, if your not an SPB I manager you may apply for an expansion team that will begin play in the 1969 season. Contact me if your interested in taking one of the expansion teams. SPB I is our most secure league (secure meaning very few openings for a manager occur). So now is your chance. 

Once I have all names of prospective managers in place, I will select 4 managers to take over these teams. Once the managers are named, I will have them select a team name first. Then there will be a random draft for the ballparks they will use. The available parks will be the 4 real life expansion team cities, and the two currently available parks in SPB I. (See bottom of manager list for SPB I on webpage to see the currently available parks). 

The final step will be to conduct the player draft. The available players for the expansion draft will be limited to EVERY PLAYER who was on an expansion roster during the 1969 season, regardless of how briefly they were on it, or how much or how little they played. Rookies on real life expansion teams are included regardless of how much they play in 1969. The order of drafting will be decided by a random number program; the same one we use to determine the random order of each rookie draft. By holding the drafts and getting the teams in place, it will make if very convinient for all current managers to know who they will be loosing well before the 1969 season begins.

If your interested, but have questions, now is the time to ask. Otherwise, please send me notice if your interested in becoming a 1969 expansion manager in SPB I. Have your application to manage to me by Monday evening, October 25th at 8:00 P.M. EST. 

Notice: If you take on an expansion team, and another team becomes available before the 1969 season, (which is highly unlikely, but you never know for sure) you will not be permitted to switch teams from your expansion one to the available one. This is a committment to build your own team from scratch. :)

June 28, 2002
Manager needed in 86
FRANKFORT, IN - There is a current opening in SPB - V due to the resignation of a current manager after the first month of play. The Memphis Mudcats is the team roster you want to check out if you have interest in expanding your current managership in SPB. Please feel free to log onto the SPB website to check out the teams roster. Then notify either Chris Williams or myself that you are interested. 

Since the season is already underway, we would just as soon have a current manager, who knows the SPB ropes, take over this team. We will wait 2 days to allow you to check out the team and let us know you are interested.  

February 2, 2002
Lefty/Righty analysys
TUCSON, AZ - Thanks goes out to Tim Johnson for putting together this analysis that hopefully will put to rest the myth that lefties cant perform with DMB. Earlier versions of DMB have shown a disadvantage to southpaws, but it seems that version 8 has corrected that problem.  You can see for yourself by clicking HERE.

September 17, 2001
Change to Unlimited relief pitching rules
FRANKFORT, IN - As Commissioner of SPB, I have decided the Constitution will be updated to include the following changes concerning "bonus" ratings that apply to relief appearances. The changes will be as follows:

1. All pitchers who have an ERA of 4.50 or above will be considered as "bonus" pitchers. Formerly the ERA for bonus pitching rules was at 5.00 or above.

2. All "bonus" pitchers will now be available for up to a maximum of 60 relief appearances. The old rule had the max set at 50 appearances.

These changes are being implemented after a quick study of the overuse applied in recent SPB seasons. I concluded that this is the one area that is not very realistically handled in DMB, at least when not playing modern (1990's and after) seasons. 

This change was decided by me because the fact that the Computer Manager, which manages your teams away series's, seems to continually use more relief pitching than is needed no matter where a manager sets his tendencies. This is the one factor of SPB pitching that is not foreseeable for a seasons play. Starting pitchers are a known quantity, and have no flexibility when it comes to the CM. (But now starting pitchers can still double their starts up to a max of 24 (as before), providing the pitcher has an ERA of 4.50 or more, instead of the old ERA of 5.00. So you do get a bit of help in this area after all.

Since most of our overuse recently has stemmed from the relief pitching, these rule changes will help managers avoid overusage to a greater degree when it comes to relief pitching for the future SPB seasons. 

These rules will go into effect starting with the following years of play: SPB - I (1965), SPB - II (1953), SPB - III (1933), SPB - IV (1974), and SPB - V (1986). In all instances these are seasons which have not yet started. 

These changes will give every manager a better chance to manage his SPB team(s) without getting into overuse because of the way DMB handles relief pitching. 

July 19, 2001
Version 8d patch out
TUCSON, AZ - There is a new patch out for version 8.  Please go download it as soon as possible. Follow this link to see what's been added and fixed. 

July 9, 2001
Version 8 points to ponder
BOWLING GREEN, OH - Some items to keep in mind: 

1. Be very careful if you should decide to autoplay ahead on the league schedule. If you do so, and do not use either the "restart season" feature (and reinstall the most current database) or use the subtract games feature, then the old boxscores will remain in your database and will not be over-written when you play the games for real. This is a byproduct of the feature that allows the league commissioner to send out just the most recent boxes and is a difference from Version 7 (where the game box records were over-written). 

Unfortunately, it can lead to the appearance that you have improperly replayed the series (in other words, cheated), because there is a discrepancy between the boxscores and the "official" statistical representation of the games. We do not want this!

2. Secondly, sending your visiting opponents just the boxes from your series is unnecessary and it is also not helpful. It isn't necessary if you copy all your visiting opponents when you send in your stats to the league statistician, because the league is set to include boxes automatically in the export. It isn't helpful because the boxes cannot be imported unless they are part of a stats export. My recommendation is to do the stats export (which automatic) and send that. This will send your opponent all the information he needs. 

3. You do not need to be overly careful about sending out stats with multiple teams including some you didn't play (say, if you have imported other stats and are only then sending in your own results). Version 8 has a stats importation "failsafe" that automatically prevents the doubling of any stats from the same game date (it recognizes the game as already played and blocks the importation of its stats). 

4. Be very careful about using the correct profiles (and other instructions) sent by visiting opponents, because Version 8 sometimes sets up a default profile, creating the illusion that there is already a profile in place for the team (it was sometimes possible to tell in Version 7 by looking at a team to see if you had already imported the profile). 

5. If for some reason your visiting opponent shows as not being rested heading into a series, you should go to "tools" and "reset usage" and either select the team you are playing or the league. All this does is rest the pitchers/catchers and reset injuries. It does NOT reset statistics (that is accomplished by selecting "restart season," which you should not do). 

March 23, 2001
Change to Power Rankings procedure
TUCSON, AZ - Due to time constraints and to make things a little more streamlined, I will still be posting the Power Rankings on the website each month, but the monthly recap with previous months' rankings and such will be discontinued. This will leave me more time to concentrate on more statistics to post to the website with the advent of version 8.  I may, at the end of each season post a Power Ranking recap, but I just wanted to let you of the slight change of procedure.

 

 

November 4, 2000
New rules for late reporting
FRANKFORT, IN - All SPB Managers, I have been thinking for sometime of putting into place some changes on stat reporting for each months play. It seems it is a rare month that we do not have anywhere from 1-3 mangers who are late getting their stats in on time.

   After talking with former Commish, Jim Wheeler, my right hand man, he agrees that this seems to have became a problem in the last year or so. So to combat this tardiness, I have devised the following plan. It will work in the same manner as the overusage rule. Everytime a manager get his stats in on time each month (stats are due to the Stat by the 20th) a manager will be awarded one point. This will give every manager the chance to accumulate 6 points for being on time during a season, since our seasons last for six months.

  These points will be used as an award for the team by having the final win totals adjusted in the same manner as penalty points, only in reverse. Say your team is on time every month and you accumulate the full 6 points. Each of these points will take a victory away from your team total and will be tallied into figuring the drafting order, along with the overusage factors, for each rookie draft your team participates in thereby lowering your victory totals and possibly improving your draft position. The catch is that for EVERY DAY your team stats are reported late, it will cost you a point.

  As you can see, if you are late consistently, you will begin having negative points which will add to your teams victory total. It would only take one period of 6 days late to nullify any positive points you have earned. This may sound a bit complicated, but I can track it simply by checking with the stats on the 20th to see if all managers have their figures in on time. I consider this a necessary change since lateness seems to be a fairly regular thing anymore.

   This will be put into effect immediately in all SPB Leagues, but it will only be possible to earn 2 points in '63 since we are currently playing August. Managers in SPB-IV (73) will be under this rule with the current month of play (May) which gives 5 possible points for this one. One final bonus point can be accumulated as well by participating in the League Awards and All-Star Voting at the end of each season. This gives teams the chance for 7 total points. But you must vote both catagories to be eligeable to win this extra 7th point. This will begin with SPB-I (63) also. I will check this out with webmaster John Turnbull at the voting deadlines for each season.  Thanks to those of you who are consistently on time, that is the way it should be! Keep up the good work. Here is hoping that the lateness will cease for all others. Thanks, Gary