The Bill Veeck's Leg League (BVL) is a NL-only Strat-O-Matic Baseball computer league, with its season running April thru approximately November. The league was founded in 2000.

1. The 14 teams are divided into two divisions, the Gaedel and the Minoso, and play a balanced 156-game schedule.
2. League dues are $25 annually. Dues cover expenses such as the yearly engraving and shipping of four traveling plaques honoring the league champs, MVP, Cy Young Award winner, and Manager of the Year, plus one round of drinks for those in attendance when the Rookie Draft is held in Las Vegas in the “odd” years. Dues must be paid in full no later than February 1 to reserve a place in the league.

Organizationally the league is run by the managers as a group, with some responsibilities handled individually and some by committee. The committees generally rotate on a yearly basis:

1. The 3-man Executive Committee (3-year commitment) oversees the league, including assigning the other committees. After reviewing league feedback, it determines league issues including which proposals are brought to votes. While the Executive Committee’s primary responsibility is to enforce the Constitution, it may make unilateral decisions in the best interest of the BVL, with the exception of overruling the Trade Committee.
2. The Statistician creates rosters and coordinates statistics regularly during the season.
3. The 3-man Trade Committee reviews all trades. If any trade is determined by a 3-0 vote to have been unfair (by their definition) the trade is rejected and sent back to the teams involved. The Trade Committee will include its rationale with any trade rejection. If not re-submitted, the trade is vetoed. If re-submitted, the process begins again. There are no appeals for any decision made by the Trade Committee. Trades are presumed to be approved if not officially rejected within 48 hours of submission.
4. The Compensation Committee will organize and operate each season's Compensation Voting and Draft.
5. The Webmaster will keep the website updated.
6. The Treasurer will collect and disperse all monies as directed by the Executive Committee.
7. The Draft Coordinators will schedule, organize, and run the Rookie Draft. (Odd years must be present in Las Vegas.)
8. The Logomaster will create and maintain all league and team logos and drink beer at an alarming rate.

1. The BVL uses only National League players. If a player has two cards, only the NL card will be used.
2. The BVL does NOT use uncarded, “computer-only” players.

A. ROSTERS

1. Before each season, each team may protect up to 22 players from their previous season's roster. Teams may protect carded or uncarded players. If uncarded players are not protected, the team waives its ownership to those players.
2. Rosters may consist of carded or uncarded players. However, uncarded players must remain in the minor leagues.
3. All teams must have a minimum of 1,400 Innings Pitched (IP) and 650 Plate Appearances (PA) at each position on their roster. They must also have a backup at each position on their active roster at all times. Violations will result in Penalty Points. The Executive Committee reserves the right to make waiver adjustments to any team not in compliance with these or any roster rules.
4. Before each month's games, teams must report their starting rotation and list of minor leaguers to the statistician. Teams must use the same 26-man active roster for the entire month (home and road games).
5. Teams may never deviate from their scheduled starting rotations. Starter rest will be enforced throughout the month. For example, assume the pitcher that starts on your May 1st game is a non-asterisked (four days rest) pitcher. He may not start again until your May 6th game. Then again on your May 11th game and so on. Rotations renew each month so the pitcher that started the last game of the current month may start the first game of the following month.

During September, all players with usage left may be activated. Such players may be activated for some September series but not others as a means of controlling usage. Teams may include road instructions such as, “Let Jones start at second base until he accumulates 10 plate appearances. Then deactivate following that game.” Teams may NEVER instruct the home manager to make in-game moves, such as “Remove Smith once he pitches four innings in his start.” Such instructions are illegal in any month. Once the game starts, the road team is in HAL's hands.

B. PLAYER USE (Also see PLAYING RULES)

1. For the regular season, all players may be used a maximum of 110% of their actual ML PA/IP. This number is calculated by the game engine. (A "plate appearance" is defined as at-bats plus walks.)
2. Managers are responsible for not over-using players and are subject to penalties if they do. Once players are used up, their regular-seasonal eligibility immediately ends. Intentional overuse may result in dismissal from the league. Accidental overuse will be penalized as follows: 1 Penalty Point for every out a pitcher is overused & 1 Penalty Point for every plate appearance a batter is overused. The Executive Committee also may dole out penalty points for violations of league rules such as lateness. Penalty is the loss of a draft pick according to the following:

C. ACCUMULATED PENALTY POINTS PENALTY

0 - 25: None

26 - 50: Loss of 5th round pick

51 - 75: Loss of 4th round pick

76 - 100: Loss of 3rd round pick

101+ : Loss of 2nd round pick

All penalties will be assigned to the manager, not the franchise. If a manager does not have a penalized pick (i.e., he had already traded it away), he can either trade for his original pick back or forfeit a pick one round better in the following year's draft. Exception: See Rule V.C.1.

3. Except in the postseason, pitchers listed as "Starter" only may not relieve. Pitchers listed as "Relief-Only” may never start. Pitchers designated by SOM as an "*" starter (usually determined by 200 IP + 30 starts) may pitch with only three days rest. All other starters need four days rest. (As noted in SOM's Super-Advanced Rules.)
4. A player may play a position not listed on his card only in the following circumstances:
5. Outfielders may change as per SOM's Super-Advanced Rules;
6. If due to injury he is without enough players to field a team;
7. Teams may use a position player to pitch under SOM's rules ONLY IF his team is behind by at least 10 runs AND the game is in the eighth inning or later.
8. Pinch-runners are permitted at any time with the following exception: If a pinch-runner tries for the lead and fails to get it, he may not be removed for another pinch-runner as long as he continues to occupy the same base. (This applies to the human playing the games only.)
9. Players with separate batting and pitching cards in the same set: Beginning with the 2020 BVL season, the league discontinued the use of the “Brooks Kieschnick Memorial Rule” and allowed the revamped game engine to handle these players appropriately.

D. TRADES

1. The BVL allows trading at the following times:
   1. The Pre-Draft trading period, beginning after the Protected Lists are handed in (approximately 2 weeks);
   2. The Post-Draft trading period, beginning shortly after the Draft and lasting approximately 1 week;
   3. In-Season trading, which continues through July.
2. In-Season trades must be reported to the league no later than the 20th of the month to be active for the following month. Trades reported after the 20th will not count for the upcoming month.
3. Trades may be for any asset (carded players, uncarded players, draft choices through the 10th round) except ballparks. Trades for draft choices may be only for "this year and next year." For example, during the 2022 pre-draft trading period, you may trade 2022 and/or 2023 draft picks. But you may not trade 2024 draft picks until the 2023 pre-draft trade period.
4. Intricate or conditional trades are permitted but:
   1. The full conditions must be spelled out in complete detail at the time of the trade;
   2. Any trade that could be considered a "trade back" -- that is, automatically or through conditions completely or partially reversed the following year -- is prohibited.
   3. Trades agreed to during a non-trading period must be finalized by both parties during a legal trading period.
5. All trades must be submitted to and approved by the Trade Committee.
   1. In the absence of a member of Trade Committee (travel, etc.), or the inclusion of a Trade Committee member in a trade, a member of the Executive Committee will stand in. If an Executive Committee member is needed, the order will be selected by seniority, with the Chairman as the first replacement, unless he’s involved with the trade.

E. BALLPARKS

Each BVL team has a ballpark. These are permanent unless its NL team actually moves to a new city. This does not apply to NL teams who simply build a new local ballpark.

F. THE LEG LOTTERY

Each year a draft lottery will determine the first three overall picks in the Rookie Draft. The Leg Lottery will include only the eight non-playoff teams with the team with the worst record having a 22 percent chance to get the first pick, the second-worst record a 19 percent chance, and so on, down to the team with the eighth-worst record having a 3 percent chance. The Leg Lottery is held on New Year’s Eve, with the picks being revealed one at a time (the final two at once) from January 1-7.

In the case of a situation where a league member drops out mid-year and their team would have qualified for the playoffs, there will be only seven teams involved in the Leg Lottery. If the eighth team’s number is rolled, there will be a re-roll to determine the top three picks.

G. COMPENSATION DRAFT

The Compensation Draft allows teams that lost players to the AL (“Outgoing Players”) during the most recent season to draft players that entered the NL from the AL (“Incoming Players”) during that season. The draft will be held in February, starting on a date determined by the Executive Committee. It will generally be held via email over a two, or three, day period with results posted to Facebook. For more details on the Compensation System, please see Section VI.

H. ROOKIE DRAFT

1. The Rookie Draft will be held in March on a date TBD by the Exec Committee after canvassing availability and preference. The draft will be held on a Saturday in odd-numbered (Vegas) years, and on a Sunday in even-numbered (non-Vegas) years. A chat room will be set up online for the draft with telephone back-up access.
   13. The standard number of league-provided draft picks is 13. No team will end the draft with more than 35 players on its roster.
   14. If a team has a pick taken away through penalty, they will finish the draft with 34 players.
   15. The draft is in reverse order of the previous year's finish, with the Leg Series loser drafting 13th and Leg Series winner drafting 14th automatically.
2. There is no time limit on draft choices, but after approximately three minutes expect to be razzed mercilessly.

I. PLAYING RULES (Also see PLAYER USE)

1. All Super-Advanced rules, including Super Hal, are used with the exception of the Weather.
2. Injuries are allowed but for no longer than the balance of the series only. Unless specified in instructions, HAL will create a new lineup.
3. Beginning with the 2022 BVL season, starting pitchers with endurance ratings of “4” or more must pitch a minimum of three innings unless; (i) they allow 3 runs or (ii) their fatigue drops below “9”. Starting pitchers with endurance ratings of “1” do not have an innings minimum.
4. No pitcher may start an inning with a “0” fatigue rating. If a pitcher reaches “0” during an inning, he may finish the inning, but he must be relieved before the next inning.
5. Face-to-face and Netplay (with limitations) are allowed. For Netplay, each team may play three road Netplay series and unlimited home Netplay series. This will allow the average team to play six Netplay series, or 36 Netplay games. Any games played via Netplay will constitute a series as far as this limit is concerned.
6. Starting in the 2021 season, the BVL instituted the “minimum three batter rule” for relief pitchers that was instituted in Major League play for the 2020 season.

V. POSTSEASON

1. Six teams advance to the BVL playoffs, the two division winners (the #1 and #2 seeds) and the non-division winners (wild cards) with the four best won-lost records (seeds #3 thru #6).
2. No unowned team may advance to the playoffs. The highest ranked owned team take their spot. Unowned teams may participate in all other league activities at the discretion of the Executive Committee.
3. The first round of the playoffs pits the wild card teams against each other with the division winners receiving byes. The #3 seed (the wild card team with the best record) will play the #6 seed (the wild card team with the worst record), while the #4 and #5 seeds play each other.
4. In the second round, the #1 seed plays the lower remaining seed, while the #2 seed plays the higher remaining seed.
5. The winners will play for the BVL championship, aka The Leg Series.
6. All series are Best-of-7 with the higher seed designated as the home team for games 1, 2, 6, and 7. Each series begins with no injuries. A day off (travel) is recorded after games 2 and 5.  For the purposes of pitching rotations, two days rest will be added between series, plus any days for unplayed games.  Meaning if a series goes 6 games, a day off for Game 7 (not needed) plus two more days off will be added allowing an * starter who started Game 6 to come back again to start Game 1.  However, no matter what type of rest HAL assigns a pitcher, no starter may ever start Game 7 of one series and Game 1 of the next.
7. Postseason usage limits are 15% for division winners and 20% for wild cards. Meaning, if a division-winner pitcher has 100 carded innings, he’ll have 15 post-season IP. A wild card player with 100 innings will have 20 post-season IP. (Remember, he has to play an extra series.) In case of fractions, always round higher.
8. Players overused during the regular season cannot participate in the postseason without penalty. If a manager chooses to use a player overused in the regular season during the postseason, the player's overuse will be multiplied by 5 in determining penalty points. However, no teams will be allowed to surpass a total of 125 team PP's by activating a player for the playoffs.

(Example: Joe Slugger was overused by 20 plate appearances in the regular season which would cost his team 20 penalty points. If Slugger was activated for the postseason, it would cost his team 100 (20 x 5) penalty points, with his team forfeiting at least [depending upon other PP] a third-round draft pick the following year.)

All voluntary usage penalties must be paid in the subsequent year's draft. This is an exception to Rule IV.B.2. If activating an overused player for the postseason would cause the owner to forfeit a draft pick he no longer owns, he may substitute a higher draft pick that he does own. If he does not have a pick in his possession sufficient to satisfy the penalty incurred by activating the player, he may not activate that player for the postseason.

1. Playoff teams must submit a 26-player post-season roster to the Statistician before playing any games. These rosters may not be changed throughout the post-season.
2. Post-season injury rules differ from regular-season injury rules in three respects:
3. Regular-season injuries will not continue into the playoffs;
4. Injuries will be limited to Balance of Game +1.
5. Injuries are measured by DAYS, not GAMES.
6. Breaking ties:
   1. If two teams are tied, and only seeding is at stake, the tie-breaking procedures are: First, head-to-head games vs. that opponent; second, division record (if they are in the same division); third, coin flip.
   2. If there is a tie where either; (i) one team will win a division (and earn a bye) and one team won’t or (ii) one team will make the playoffs and one team won’t; a playoff game will be held (with all regular-season limits applying). Home team will be determined by a coin flip. This game will be played on Day 157 as noted previously.
   3. In case of a three-way tie where only one team will advance to the playoffs, slips of paper will be drawn from The Leg. The winner (having drawn the "1") will have the option of either playing both teams 2 and 3 at home, or the winner of the 2 vs. 3 matchup (2 is home in that one) on the road. This is a single-elimination process.
7. All Starting pitchers may relieve in the postseason as designated by the SOM Super-Advanced rules.

PREAMBLE: The major conceit of single-league (NL-only or AL-only) leagues is intra-league player movement. Many leagues simply take a “tough luck” approach to teams losing players. The BVLL, however, designed an advanced Compensation System which roughly replicates the talent values of players “lost” TO the AL (“Outgoing Players”) by using their counterparts arriving FROM the AL (“Incoming Players”).

CONCEPT: Although the system contains some complexities and technicalities involving player eligibility, Compensation revolves around the concept of "unexpected loss." This ensures the integrity of the Compensation System, by precluding teams from trading (or drafting) their way into the Compensation draft.

SYSTEM: At the time a team acquires a player (through draft or trade), he falls into one of three categories: he is under contract to a real-life NL team, he is under contract to a real-life AL team, or he is owned by neither.

1. If he is already in the AL when acquired, he is not eligible for compensation due to failing to adhere to the "unexpected loss" principle. Such players will be listed as "pounded" and will be listed with a "#" symbol next to their names on league rosters and draft lists. The only way a player can lose his pounded status is if he returns to the NL during the season he was pounded, and receives an NL card; otherwise, you lose all rights to this player after the season.
2. If a player is in the NL or is a free agent when acquired, he now falls into one of the following four categories:
   • He has an NL card only this year;
     1. You have the right to either keep him as one of your 22 players or release him into the Rookie Draft.
   • He has an AL card only this year;
     1. You can either seek compensation based on the value of his AL card, or you may choose “Retainer Rights”, meaning you retain control over the player if he ever returns to the NL and receives an NL card. Any player put on the Retainer Rights list does not count against your 22 man roster. Teams lose Retainer Rights over a player if he goes three consecutive seasons without receiving any Strat-o-Matic baseball card.
   • He has both NL and AL cards this year;
     1. You can either keep his NL card as part of your 22 man roster, or you can submit his ML card for compensation. If you submit his ML card for compensation, you relinquish control of the NL card, which is entered into the current season’s Rookie Draft.
   • He has no card this year.
     1. You can either keep the uncarded player as part of your 22 man roster, or you can release him. If an uncarded player is released, he will not be added to the current season’s Rookie Draft.

Compensation Vote: Managers will vote for the compensation order, listing the most deserving 1st, next most deserving 2nd, etc., all the way down the “Outgoing” list. Outgoing players will be ranked by their submitted card “value” (usage + quality) with lesser consideration given to age and potential.

Managers are NOT eligible to vote for their own players. If irregularities in a manager's ballot are apparent (the obviously undeserving receiving undue support to undermine the process), the Executive Committee may invalidate such ballots and take disciplinary action. THIS VOTE MUST BE AS HONEST AS THE GAMES.

Any ties are broken by dropping each tied player’s high and low votes until the tie is broken. If the tie cannot be broken in this way, then a roll of the dice from the Leg determines the tiebreaker.

Any owner failing to submit a compensation list by the deadline will be assessed 30 penalty points, and the Executive Committee will make compensation decisions for the team using their best judgment.

NOTE: In the case of a discrepancy or the overlapping of rules, interpretations as made by the Executive Committee are final.