On March 15th, a record setting 13 players showed up at President Josh Paul's residence for the traditional preseason festivity. Discussed were the start of season, equipment needs, captain announcements, division selection, financials and rules assessments. The turnout is a vast improvement from the 4-6 players who would attend the annual gathering a few years ago.
Veto League Baseball's 23rd Opening Weekend was tentatively set for April 25-26, but will be postponed tentatively into May, dependent on when the World Health Organization loosens restrictions on "social distancing". The VLB always opens the season with a Saturday/Sunday double header weekend. After the first weekend, the league will play Saturday games at 11 am and a weeknight game (Tuesday or Wednesday) at 5:30.
Though they were last year's regular "sub captains", two players will make their debuts as Official Captains for the 2020 season. Brandon Bollman and Edwin Moore join the lion's den of Alex Miller, Mason Overmire, Josh Paul and Johnny Readus. Divisions were drawn at random. The Saukie Division will have Paul's Goonies and Miller's Cannons along with Bollman's Bears. The Blackhawk Division will then have returning World Series Champion Heavy Hitters against rival Readus' Racketeers and Moore's return from his night game captainship as the Admirals.
The league will be purchasing new baseballs, as many of last year's were ruined during the wet night game. The league will also be purchasing a large tape reel to measure 90' bases and plans to once again pay the Rock Island Parks & Recreation for reservation of Ridgewood. The league will also look into renting Jefferson and/or Northwest Fields in Davenport.
Finally, the last item discussed were any potential rule changes. Two major items were discussed, both of which passed. Miller kicked off voting by proposing an administrative change, "If on the tally sheet sheet the RBIs are greater than the runs the team must take the amount of runs they have on the score and eliminate the RBIs unless there is a unanimous decision regarding the incorrect scoring." This vote was passed unanimously 13-0. Nick Swanson followed up with a proposal off this, "If a score is incorrect with more RBIs than runs, the RBIs will be taken off from that team captain's statistics." This vote passed 8-3, much to the chagrin of Josh Paul, who afterward said he was, "Appalled. Amazed. Astonished. And abhorred."
The second potential rule change was raised by Tori Frantz - VLB's second most games played female. Frantz recommended, "When a female is up to bat, defense must play their "natural" depth with reasonable shift when playing their fielding position." In 22 years, Veto League has brought 46 females to the diamond. They have a combined 1,232 at bats with a .258 career average of The vote was passed 12-1.