The dawn of a new league really begins today with the first regular season's games just starting. The first overall game in the BCHBL will go down in history as a Braves win over the Reds:

The fire is burning brightly in the eyes of each GM to capture the pennant and take a shot at getting your name engraved in the trophy of all trophies.
 

The BCBL will restart with a new league file in January of 2010 with the following teams:

The MLB players from 1980 will be put into an inagural draft. All team markets and fans will be equalized. All draft classes into the future will be pulled from each seasons real life draft. It will NOT be a Re-Cal league. That means that players will be drafted with talent based on their career stats and from there will progress via the OOTP 10 engine. SO future players (like Roger Clemens or Jose Canseco could end up having dramatically different careers.

The Inagural Draft will start at some point in January of 2010. Each manager will be given a time slot(s ) for each day and the draft will be conducted via forum style draft. New lists can be turned in each day. The first 5 rounds will be one pick per day, and the next 20 rounds will be 2 picks per day. That means the entire draft will be 15 days long. Each manager will know the exact time slot that all 25 picks will be due, so they can turn in a list a few days at a time, only one day at a time, OR make each pick "live" via the forum right before their pick is due. Any team that does not make a pick via list or live draft will be skipped and a CPU pick will be choosen AT the end of the round.

Future expansion drafts will occur the years in which they occured historically. The AL will use the DH, the NL managers will vote on it before the draft starts. Any divisional re-alignments will occur and the wild card will be introduced on in the years in which they did historically.

More news to come in the next week. Signups will begin on the forum (HERE) for those who already are a part of the BCBL. Starting December 19th... the remaining teams will then be offered to any non-current BCBL members. IF you are already signed up and have access to the forum, you can pick your team here. If not, you have to wait until December 19, 2009.

   This version was moved from beta to official release by Markus. For today's sim I will import everyone's exports in using the current 10.2.18 version... then I will save the league, then I will upgrade to 10.4.31, then I will run the sim and upload the results as normal. In order to see the results later tonight, you will need to update at that time.

   YOU MUST HAVE VERSION OOTP 10.4.31 TO READ THE MOST RECENT BCBL FILE UPDATE!

   IF you are in other leagues that are still using 10.2.16 or 10.2.18 than I would HIGHLY recommend you download the full version of OOTP 10.4.31 and install it in a separate directory from your current install. This will allow you to run both versions. You can run as many patched versions this way, on a computer, in separate directories, all using the same license.

   You can download the updates here: http://www.ootpdevfiles.com/ootp/10.4.31/

   IF you have any questions about installing the patch or full versions... please ask in the League Questions section of the forum.

   The first cases of 2010 All-Star Ballots have left the printers and are on their way to all 30 Billy Chapel Baseball League ballparks for the fans to begin the ballot box stuffing process.

   This years ballot in StatsLab is dramatically new and improved. Instead of hard minimums by number of at-bats or innings played at a given position... the ballot is created by way of average # of at bats, innings pitched, innings played in the field, per game played by the team the player plays on. This should allow for a true test of starting position players making the ballot and bench players will have to earn their way into a starting position next season to make the next ballot.

   Graphically, the ballot in StatsLab is improved as well, lots of stats show up, including fielding stats and even catching specific stats for the catchers. You'll have everything you need to know to make your selections. Also, as each sim progresses, the stats on the ballot update. The All-Star ballot will be unveiled on Friday evening (two days from now). Each GM will have eight [8] days to complete the ballot before the "polls close" and the all-star selections are entered into the game file.

   Also coming is the Ammy Draft players will be on your roster after the Saturday sim is posted on Saturday morning.