------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | International Replay Baseball League - Founded October 30, 1973 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ***************** IRBL NEWSLETTER # 917 ***************** 3-28-13 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ...................................... TEAM SEASON INSTRUCTIONS SETS: Along with this newsletter, you will find a set of the following instruction files for each team: 1) INSTRUCT.Txx 2) PITCHING.Txx 3) INACTIVE.Txx NOTE: The xx is the two digit IRBL team number. ...................................... Prior to each series, print (or view in a separate window) the road team's PITCHING, INACTIVE and INSTRUCT files to be sure you are using the latest instructions. The best way to print them is to Windows Wordpad (select "Start-Programs-Accessories-Wordpad"), use Windows Explorer and drag any IRBL file into the Wordpad window. Then change the four margins to "0.25" (select File-Page Setup) and print the file (or any selected page or pages). The latest team computer manager profiles will always be pre-loaded into the IRBL DMB player files whenever you install the latest LRD. ...................................... MANAGER RESIGNATION: As previously announces via email, Andrea Cristiani has resigned as the TWINS manager due to his job schedule and family health problems. Bill Mattfeld has volunteered to handle the TWINS as a temporary G.M. ...................................... MANAGER STATUS CHANGE: Don Tobin will be handling the CARDINALS as a full playing manager and the ROYALS as a full playing temporary manager (he will play those team's home series). ...................................... The following teams are without permanent managers: Play your road series against these teams: ASTROS : John Parker (TGM) CUBS : Carmen Corica (TGM) NATIONALS : Gerry McDonald (TGM) IRBL # 917 3-28-13 2 TIGERS : Chuck Hixson (TGM) TWINS : Bill Mattfeld (TGM) BLUE JAYS : Chip Hopkins (TGM) The following teams have temporary managers who will be playing the home series for the team plus road series against the above other teams who do not have a game playing manager: PADRES : John Mattfeld (TM) ROYALS : Don Tobin (TM) ORIOLES : Ricky Diaz (TM) RAYS : Ian Roach (TM) ...................................... REMINDER ABOUT INSTALLING AN IRBL LRD: Whenever you install an IRBL LRD during the season, it will replace the IRBL DMB player files with the latest files from the Official League Office files. Please be sure that you have completed preparing and have emailed to the League Office all played series (the series ZIP file) (and if you made any changes to your team's computer manager profile, be sure you have exported and sent the League Office an updated instructions ZIP file) prior to installing the LRD because it will erase everything in the IRBL DMB player files. ...................................... Reminder about late series (IRBL rule # 29A2): If I do not receive an SRZ by 2 weeks after the series date, I will offer the opposing manager the option to play the series. If he does not want to play it, either a pre-arranged volunteer will play it or I will play it. If there are no home team lineup instructions then the road series lineups for the previous road series will be used. If the lineup is missing a player (due to the Inactive List) then any available player can be used to fill the spot. LSP's will still continue to accumulate until the results of the series is received from whoever plays it. If any managers wants to stand ready to play such series that fall back for me to play (to save me the time), please let me know and I will put you on a "ready to play late series" list. IRBL # 917 3-28-13 3 Please be advised that if you do not prepare home series instructions and if you are 2 weeks late in submitting a home series, improvised instructions will be used for your team to play the series which may result in players going over season limits resulting in Player Over Use Penalties (PUP's). Volunteers who will play late series: Ricky Diaz Bill Mattfeld Chuck Hixon Carmen Corica ...................................... The "Late Series" penalties and credits chart and series receipt confirmations chart has been updated for 2013 and available to be viewed at the IRBL web site. You should also use that web page to confirm that your submitted series was received (every series receipt date is noted in the chart at the bottom of that web page). Please use this chart instead of asking me to confirm via email that I received your series. ...................................... New IRBL instructions verification check programs Below are the details about the new IRBL instructions verification check programs that I previously announced via email. In case you have not downloaded those programs yet, they are included in this LRD and you will find them in the RESULTS.Y13 program. Please use them before submitting and team instructions updates for those two instructions files. These programs will work on 64-bit Windows computers (as well as 32-bit Windows computers). For reasons not made clear to me, a number of managers chose not to use those verification check programs prior to submitting their team instructions. I would receive the instructions, run the checks, report back the errors to the manager, he would send me an update and the cycle would continue several times until all errors were corrected. It would have been less work and quicker if the checks were run and the corrections made before submitting the instructions. IRBL # 917 3-28-13 4 Inactive List check program: This program will check an IRBL Inactive List and tell you if you do not have the correct number of players on the Inactive List for any series. It will tell you which series are a problem, how many players are Inactive for the problem series and how many players should be Inactive. It will also verify that every box is filled in with either "XX" or "--". If any other characters are found in the chart, it will tell you which series date and which player needs to be corrected. It will display the results on the screen and also save the results to a file called "Inactive List check.Txx" (where "XX" is the IRBL team number). If no problems are found, it will say "No errors found". You will then find a "Inactive List check.exe" file in the RESULTS.Y13 folder. Double-click it from Windows Explorer and follow the on-screen directions to type in your 2-digit IRBL team number and press [Enter]. Starting Pitchers Rotation check program: This program will check that an IRBL Starting Pitchers Rotation sheet has 162 sets of Starting Pitcher initials entered (one for each game) and it will list a summary of each of the initials entered and how many starts listed for each (so you can compare it to the chart that you filled in at the bottom of the sheet). If there are not 162 sets of initials listed, it will tell you many were found so you can look for the missing ones. It will display the results on the screen and also save the results to a file called "Starting Pitchers Rotation check.Txx" (where "XX" is the IRBL team number). If no problems are found, it will say "No errors found". You will then find a "Starting Pitchers Rotation check.exe" file in the RESULTS.Y13 folder. Double-click it from Windows Explorer and follow the on-screen directions to type in your 2-digit IRBL team number and press [Enter]. instructions. IRBL # 917 3-28-13 5 Please note: If you do not maintain the correct formatting of the file, it will not report accurate results (it expects everything to be in the correct spots). ...................................... Files included on LRD # 917: --------------------------- INACTIVE.Txx --> Inactive List Forms Inactive List check.exe INSTRUCT.Txx --> Team Instructions file MANAGERS.TXT --> Manager Address List NEWSL917.xxx --> Newsletter # 917 PITCHING.Txx --> Starting Pitchers Rotation Sheets Starting Pitchers Rotation check.exe File Extension Legend (xxx): --------------------------- T1C --> Viewable one column newsletter text format TXT --> Viewable text format ...................................... BK