League News

Allowed Variances ("Loopholes") In Age Eligibility By Sanctioning Bodies As Well As ENYTB's Own Rules On Allowing Over-Aged Players

GENERAL
A player's baseball age is typically defined as his age on April 30 of the current year and a team's age is typically determined by the age of its oldest player. Using this standard, a team would need all players on its roster to be xx years old or less on April 30 of the current year in order for it to qualify as an xxU team.

"Loopholes" re: Age Eligibility In Regular Season Play For Unsanctioned Teams Only

RULE 1-1........Any ENYTB team electing not to be eligible for any sanctioned tournament play, regardless of the team's competition level, may have over-aged players on its roster, where the age of each over-aged player, determined on April 30 of the current season, is no more than one year above that of the team's official age.:

• Gold - none;
• Hi Silver - up to three;
• Lo Silver - up to five.

PITCHING RESTRICTIONS:

RULE 1-2.........In the case of 13 yos playing on 12U teams, those over-aged players shall not be allowed to pitch because of the shorter pitching distance.

RULE 1-3......... In the case of 22U teams, up to five over-aged players, 25 years old or younger, shall be allowed.

The purpose of adding flexibility to the age eligibility criterion is to help the less competitive unsanctioned teams be more competitive in regular season play as well as to help all Hi Silver/Lo Silver teams have a sufficient number of players so as to reduce the likelihood of postponements, cancellations and forfeits during the regular season. It also gives numerous players the opportunity to play baseball who otherwise would not have access to a travel team in their age-division to play on.

RULE 1-4......Any ENYTB team that elects to use over-aged players as prescribed under this extended age eligibility allowance is required to obtain team insurance equal to the age of the oldest player on its roster. All teams with over-aged players are marked with a "+" sign immediately following their age in their team name.

SANCTIONED TEAM EXCEPTION: SHEDDING OVER-AGED PLAYERS TO BE ELIGIBLE FOR JUNE MADNESS TOURNAMENT

Age "Loopholes" Allowed By National Sanctioning Bodies

ENYTB teams have up to four different national sanctioning choices, depending on the age of the team. Two of the four sanctioning bodies do NOT follow the April 30 age eligibility standard in ALL age divisions. Instead, certain age divisions have exceptions i.e., loopholes, that allows teams to use what we would normally call "over-aged" players with respect to the standard definition of age given above. These exceptions are as follows:

• NABF - uses Dec 31 of the prior year to determine a player's age at 17U and 22U; and,
• PONY - allows 18U teams to have a maximum of three players who are 19 years old.

It would be wrong to deny ENYTB teams from taking full advantage of these "loopholes" in the age-eligibility rules just as it would be wrong to let teams use players in regular season play to compete for berths who would be ineligible to play in the same tournament should their team win that berth.

ENYTB Rules re: Age-Eligibility In Regular Season Play For Sanctioned Teams Whereby All Players On Team Are Eligible For All Regular Season Play, the June Madness tournament and all sanctioned tournament play the team is eligible for.

ENYTB allows its teams to take maximum advantage of the age loopholes allowed by each sanctioning body but it would be unfair to let two teams compete for a berth in any sanctioned tournament unless all of their players were in conformance with that body's age eligibility criterion. For that reason, ENYTB established a consistent set of age-eligibility rules applicable to ENYTB regular season play for all sanctioned ENYTB teams regardless of their sanctioning choices (easier said than done and not that easy to say).

These rules need to achieve two things:

1. All teams need to meet the age-eligibility requirements of the various sanctioning bodies with which they are registered; and,
2. The different rules on age-eligibility should not be allowed to disadvantage any team competing for a sanctioned tournament berth, regardless of sanctioning.

RULE 3-1........Any team that takes advantage of any of the special age-eligibility rules stated above for NABF, CABA or PONY, can NOT also be eligible for sanctioned tournament play under any other sanctioning choice that imposes a more restrictive age-eligibility criterion. For example, an 18U team that takes advantage of PONY's allowance of three 19 yo players can not also choose to be AABC18 sanctioned. However, it would be possible for a 19 yo player to be eligible under both the PONY18 and CABA18 rules. Thus, a team with that player could be eligible for the CABA18 World Series and the PONY18 sanctioned tournament series.

RULE 3-2 .......All players age-eligible under RULE 3-1 shall also be age-eligible for all of that team's ENYTB regular season play as well as any sanctioned post-season play that team may qualify for.

RULE 3-3 ......ENYTB teams that elect to take advantage of RULE 3-1 shall be required to notify the League Office and, in the case of CABA, to clear their "over-aged" players with League Administration by providing proof of high school class. In addition, all teams using players who exceed the standard April 30 age cutoff shall be designated with a plus sign at the end of their team name.

RULE 3-4.......ENYTB teams that don't choose to take advantage of any of the special age-eligibility rules allowed by the national sanctioning bodies shall be eligible to register for any and all sanctioned tournaments available to them via ENYTB registration.

The objective of this policy is to allow all age-eligible players to be eligible for all of their team's regular season games as well as sanctioned tournaments that their team is eligible for while not disadvantaging teams that made more more age-restrictive sanctioning choices.

NOTE: While teams that are required to follow the standard (more restrictive) age-eligibility rule are theoretically disadvantaged in head-to-head play with teams using players who are age-eligible because of the less restrictive age rules, this does not bias the standings in their competitions because the effect will be the same for all teams included in the same standings. For example, the team with less restrictive age eligibility will not only not be eligible for the more restrictive sanctioning, it will play any number of teams with the more restrictive sanctioning, thus cancelling any bias within the standings for the more restrictive age-eligibility sanctioning choice.