NL Season Ending Wrap-up

The Division winners were in the West-Ocala, in the Central-Stanley and in the East-Glen Allen. The Wildcard winners were Fleetwood and Columbus. Congratulations to the teams that made it to post season play.

Ocala cruised along all season and finished with a 46 game lead and the best record in the NL. The Ocelots have been tough to beat all year long while finishing with 113 wins. Here are some reasons why; they feature the leagues leading hitter, Alfonzo .356, the RBI leader in Helton 165 and the saves leader Percival 41.

Stanley stayed in control of the Central all season and actually more than double their lead in the final month as they pulled away from Fleetwood. Stanley won an impressive 103 games and their 2^nd straight division title.

Glen Allen won another division title as they finished ahead of Wauwatosa by 5 games. With only 78 wins and a below .500 record the Mets won the division but this won’t be the same team as last year that made it all the way to the Brassball championship series.

Fleetwood finished with the best record that didn’t win a division title with 92 wins and find themselves in the Wildcard series against division foe, Columbus. Columbus finished 89-73 and will start on the road at Fleetwood to face the Walkers in the Wildcard matchup.

Playoffs Begin

The playoffs are set to begin. Congratulations to the teams that made the post season. The teams have been notified and the games will begin as soon as possible.

The first series of the playoffs will between the 2 Wildcards. The Division winners were Ocala, Stanley and Glen Alllen. The Wildcard winners were Fleetwood and Columbus.

Fleetwood (92-70) has home field advantage for the 7 game series with Columbus (89-73). Ocala (113-49) will meet Glen Allen (78-84) and will have home field advantage throughout the playoffs. The Wildcard winner will face Stanley with Stanley (103-59) having home field advantage.

There are considered to be two rest days between the final day of the regular season and the beginning of the Wildcard round. The division winners have a bye during the Wildcard round and as such, will be completely rested for their initial series.

After the completion of the Wildcard round, the Second Round Playoff Series match-ups in each league are as follows: Remaining playoff team with worst winning % @ Division Winner with best record, and remaining playoff team with 3^rd best record @ remaining playoff team with 2nd best record.

The League Championship and World Series match-ups are as follows: the team with the best record hosts the other team, except that a wildcard team can never host a series, unless two wildcard teams make the World Series. All series are 7-game series and are conducted using the 2-3-2 format.

Several teams this year have completed all of their mailings and deadlines on time for the entire year. In our busy lives this is really a credit to achieve such an accomplishment.

To reward these teams, they are given an extra sandwich pick between the 3^rd and 4^th rounds of the draft. Here are the NL teams and congratulations on this feat.

Post season awards ballots will be sent out with this mailing. Now with the centralized stats it should make it much easier this year to select the players for the awards. When you get the ballot, please select your top 5 choices in each category. To find out which players are rookies, please look at the roster sheets and anyone who was signed to a 1,A* contract would qualify. Please send the ballots back to Mark Lentz. Ballots are due back by October 25^th. It is mandatory for you to vote.

In the BRASSball League, we hold maximum effort for our home opponents as a high League ideal. If everyone gives consistent effort in this regard, a team should perform to approximately the same degree above or below average at home as they do on the road. Knowing that the dissatisfaction with the lack of reliable road results and the lack of honest effort on the part of opponents are two problems which can fell a League, the BRASSball League uses the program detailed below to encourage and reward the honest effort at home which leads to small home/road discrepancies.

The average this year was 3.6 more wins at home than on the road per team. The highest win total was by Toledo with 24 more wins at home than on the road. On the other side of the coin, Wauwatosa won 7 more games on the road than at home.

Range	Variance	Amount Due	Teams
Range #1	-4.89 to -7.0	3,000,000.00	Minnesota	Racine	Wauwatosa
Range #2	-4.88 to -2.77	2,500,000.00	Bloomington	Gem City	St. Croix
Range #3	+.65 to -2.76	2,000,000.00	Georgia	Stanley
Range #4	+.64 to +1.47	1,500,000.00	Long Island
Range #5	+1.48 to +3.6	1,000,000.00	Morris	No. Goergia

Metropolis trades Jason Johnson and Desi Relaford to Gem City for Luke Prokopec and Brad Wilkerson.

Wauwatosa trades Alfonso Soriano and their 2002 third-round draft pick to Cook County for Justin Morneau and Hank Blalock.
Santa Barbara trades John Burkett and the SB #4 (2002) to Stanley for Ted Lilly, Wes Helms, and SS #4 (2003).

Fines

Long Island is fined $2,000,000 (and loss of highest 1st round pick) for their second occurrence of failing to make a mailing to a League Administrator on time.

Gem City is fined 2,500,000.00 for over using Doug Creek by 5 innings pitched over the buffer.

North Georgia is fined 500,000.00 for over using Andrew Lorraine by 1 inning pitched over the buffer.

Racine is fined 9,500,000.00 for over using Jose Jimenez by 3 innings pitched and Dave Magadan by 17 plate appearances and Wally Joyner by 15 plate appearances over the buffer.