( A Brief History of the USPBL Drafts by Beacon Editor and USPBL Commissioner Jim Walsh)

The format of the drafts in the USPBL haven't changed at all in the past 20 years.

But considering the league formed in 1980, there's still a lot of history prior to 20 years ago.

Unfortunately while the USPBL Timeline , which can be found on the homepage, notes many of the major

milestone changes of the league, the changes to the drafts were never documented.

So let me take you back a few decades. And as a disclaimer, even my memories of the changes in the

draft formats are clouded by time.

Back in the 80's, the USPBL, like all Play-By-Mail Leagues, actually used Snail Mail. 

So you would mail in your picks for the Money Drafts on a postcard (cheaper than a letter), then wait

a few days after the draft's conclusion to get your results. Then it would be another few weeks before the

entire draft results were sent out to the league. I remember losing out on a player, Brewer prospect Chuck

Porter because they were unaware of who he was and thought I meant Darryl Porter who was already

owned. I did get him the next year but lost out on his 21 starts as a rookie in 1983. 

The real difference in the early years was this:

The Money Draft was called the Rookie Draft. It was for uncarded players only.

Something that our current Money Drafts seem to be reverting back to.

The Rotation Draft was called the Veterans Draft. Only carded players could be drafted.

And there was a catch to this. We didn't actually know who would be carded or not. There were some players

that fell in that area where it was "maybe, maybe not". Generally the cut was at about 25ABs and maybe

10 innings and 4 starts. Notice how these are still the exact requirements to select players on Waivers?

If you drafted a player that ended up being non-carded you lost them to the Rookie Draft, which by the

way was held AFTER the Veteran Draft.

Though not part of Draft lore, was the fact that usage was determined by GAMES AT A POSITION.

So a player with 149 total games which included 105 games at SS, 42 at 2B and 2 at 3B could only be used at those positions for those number of games. You could use any of the usage at DH. So he could be used

for 105 games at SS and up to 44 games at DH, but no more than 105 at SS. 

The idea of the carded/non-carded draft differences changed shortly after I became commissioner  in 1986 and the drafts became more of what they are today.

The Rookie Draft became the Money Draft. It switched places with the now named Rotation Draft and was

held first and the Rotation Draft second.

And a big change to the Money Draft was that previously draft money was awarded based on wins rather

than losses. Teams were awarded more money based on their wins. Winning teams got the bigger award!

Once renamed the Rotation Draft, it consisted of 10 rounds. This is how it stayed from 1987 until 1998.

That season we were suffering from an acute case of manager shortages and open teams.

So we reduced 1998 Rotation Draft to 7 rounds and were considering contracting to 16 teams.

But the following year we recruited a bunch of new managers and held the Restructuring Draft re-forming

8 new teams.  Mark S of FMM #3 and Wayne of SAS #13 remain from that group. Here's the results of the RSD for those really interested. Spoiler, Mark S took Sosa first and Wayne took Jason Kendall. The RSD

results also demonstrates the purpose of using Franchise #'s for teams. Even with the numerous manager and team name changes over the years, we can still identify a team's past history by the Team #.

That year the R Draft was 7 rounds for the existing teams, with 3 additional rounds for the new teams. 

For the 2000 season we decided to stick with 7 rounds for all teams, staying with the 7 rounds even

after the expansion draft to 20 teams in 2004. And that's were we are today.

The Money Draft hasn't changed too much in over the years other than the number of players that a team

could draft. One minor change was that originally we used 1/2 amounts. So you could bid 10.5K on a player.

As for the "K" term itself, originally we used the amounts in thousands. That of coarse became tedious saying you were bidding 10,000 or 10,500 on a player. So it was logically shortened to 10K. Using the term

K also became shorthand for "draft money". So it stuck.

Back to the number of players you could bid on. Originally there was no limit. I repeat, no limit. You could

bid until you ran out of money. In my first draft as commish, Dick Nelson bid on 105 players!! I don't remember how many he got, maybe 50 or so? In the 1987 I changed this to a limit of 25 bids, then 20

for 1988. In 1989 Rob Workman was commish and lowered it to 15. It stayed there for a few seasons, then

gradually was reduced each year until 1995 when we lowered it all the way down to 5. And there it stayed.

So the Money Draft has been in it's current format since 1995 and the Rotation Draft the same since 2000.

As for the future, that remains to be seen. Having been in the league for some 42 years, it's inevitable that 

there will be a new commish at some point and perhaps the draft formats will change again. 

Occasionally there has been calls to reduce the Rotation Draft from 7 to 5 rounds. The idea being that many

picks in the late rounds are wasted. By reducing the number of rounds there would be more  players

available on waivers for those needing to fill holes. So far though, the two ballots for reducing the draft has failed to make the change.

Thanks for reading this far!

Jim W 

From the USPBL Beacon's Editor -

A lot of the information from the USPBL's past drafts is still available online.

Most of the USPBL Beacons from 1999-2010 are still online. This is due to a weird thing with the Tripod

sites. Over the years Tripod would change their formats for posting on the website. The original format which

I call V1 was in use from when I first started using it in December 1998 until Jan 2011. This was fairly easy

to use but did involve the use of html. So I had to use things like <u>to underline something and then </u>

to end the underline. I know longer remember any of that stuff so I can't really use those pages anymore. 

That's why on the few occasions that I do update it (like the USPBL Rules), the format is out of whack. 

Then Tripod went with a new format where I didn't have to know any HTML. I call it Tripod V2.

After using this for a few years, they added V3. But all the pages I had on V1- V2 were gone! So I lost the online Beacons those years. I normally print out the Beacons at the end of the year and put those copies,

along with all other league documents (rosters, ID Charts, draft results etc) in a folder for that season.

Scott also saved some Beacons from those missing years which he sent me so I still have all the printed 

copies from 1998 to the present.

Then came V4 and V5. I never figured out how to use them. I use V4 for my personal tripod sites (Waterfalls

and Lighthouses) but it  didn't work for the Beacon. 

Then one day a few years ago, the pages from V1 re-appeared. So the 645 pages and 72 pics from that

era are back. With those are a lot of results from past drafts. (Thus the reason for this lengthy intro)

While I won't include all those draft results here, there is a simple way to view them.

You need only to start with one of the pages:

https://uspbl.tripod.com/beacondecember01.html

Then changing only the year, you can jump to another issue. Change the 01 to 02 and you'll get the 2002

Beacon. Or to get the Beacon from the 2002 Rotation Draft, change the month from December to February.

In some cases you'll only get the summary of the drafts. In some issues there may be a link to the pages

with the full results pages.  Note this only works for the period from Dec 1998 to Jan 2011 when the V1 pages are available. 

There is also link to the USPBL Archives on the home page which takes you to a bunch of USPBL history.

The Beacon thanks you as we enter our 44th season. And yes, the USPBL Newsletter has been called 

The Beacon since the very beginning.

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