Corner League final thoughts

Player of the season: Oscar Charleston, Herons.

Pitcher of the season: Max Manning, Herons.

The Herons didn't win the pennant, but Charleston and Manning were clearly the Corner League's best hitter and pitcher respectively. The champion Walleyes were deeper, especially in the pitching department.

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This is generally where I note the structural issues with the league. And this time I have none. I consider this five-team league a success, and will use this format again for a league with the NeL set. In fact, my next league will also be five teams playing one game at a time with no series, but I'll get into that in my next post.

One particular challenge for this league was the limited number of pitchers in the NeL set. The decisions to

• put six extra off-days into the schedule;
• use both sides of the two-way players;
• use the designated hitter and
• not allow a team to play twice on a given league day

all helped make seven- and eight-man staffs work.

So did a little luck. A sizable share of the pitchers not coded to start on three-days rest landed on the Herons; just two of their pitchers (Manning and Harry Salmon) could go on short rest. It would have been extremely difficult to handle that staff had it been a seven-man staff with just one short-rest starter. That's something to be aware of the next time I do an NeL league.

The rosters and schedule were essentially random, but not fully. I did tweak some rosters, most notably trading outfielder Willard Brown and infielder Ray Dandridge -- two Hall of Famers -- between the Tourists and Walleyes to ensure that each team had enough infielders and outfielders to sustain an injury. I also aborted the first attempt to concoct the schedule and started over with a no-doubleheaders rule.