Earlier today the Commissioner’s Office confirmed that existing ABA franchises have the option to protect up to seven (7) of their existing contracts in preparation for the upcoming 2006 auction. Owners may elect to protect LESS than this amount and they are NOT REQUIRED to protect any contracts at all if they don’t want to.
Each team must submit it’s list of protected contracts to Jason AND Jim by midnight on Friday, February 3rd.
Now that the 2005 ABA Season is in the record books…here’s what’s in store for the 2005-2006 Off Season.
Current Ownership and Dues
We want all owners to renew membership on or before Monday, January 2, 2006. This will give the League time to bring in any necessary replacement owners with plenty of time prior to the 2006 Free Agent Auction. If all owners return for 2006, then we will determine if we want to bring in 2 new owners/teams for 2006, using prospective owners from the waiting list.
*** 2006 ABA Dues ($20) due on or before January 2, 2006 ***
By-law Submissions
We want all owners who have specific Rule related ideas (By-Law changes, deletions or additions) for the League to vote on to submit them in writing, with supporting information necessary before January 2, 2006. The League will compile all By-Law Change suggestions and will distribute these to the owners prior to the Free Agent Auction for voting. Vote results will be announced no less than 3 weeks before the Free Agent Auction of 2006. The changes adopted will be enacted for the 2006 ABA Season.
*** By-Law suggestions to League before January 2, 2006 ***
Trading is CLOSED until all owners involved in trades are fully paid for the 2006 ABA Season.
DMB Software
2006 ABA games will be played on Version 9 of the DMB software (no upgrade or change is required). However, each owner is required to purchase the 2005 Player Disk from DMB and have a legal copy prior to league play beginning. Please notify the League Office when you have made your purchase.
ASSOCIATED PRESS — The Minnesota Muskees followed a playoff wildcard path enroute to a thrilling 7-game series win over a storied Statesboro Blues franchise and earned their rightful claim to the 2005 ABA Championship Trophy. This marks the second ABA Trophy for Joe Fernandes and puts him into select company with Jim Molinelli and Steve Effingham as the only current owners with multiple championships.
While complete boxscores have not yet been received by the league office, first-hand accounts of the series point to the Muskees’ taking the first three games only to be matched by a Blues comeback that tied the series up 3-3. In the decisive final game, the Muskees prevailed on the back of a Barry Bonds grand slam.
Congratulations to the Muskees on their championship run in 2005!
As discussed at the Auction, the ABA is moving the TRADE DEADLINE forward into the playing calendar a bit more. When the original by-laws were written, we had only 4 periods of play, and having a trade deadline at 50% of the season was too early. When we went to 6 or 7 periods of play, having it so LATE was problematic.
What we will do, is move the Trade Deadline to July 31 on the ABA calendar. This means that a player can still play the July games on one team, and be traded before the August ABA files go out for August ABA play. No players will move between ABA teams again until AFTER the ABA season is complete (including playoffs).
Talent Pool player pickups will still be allowed as will Farm-Active changes to the ABA rosters after this July 31st deadline, it ONLY stops interteam player movement.
Please note this for future reference.
Below is the new revenue structure as voted on prior to the 2005 ABA regular season.
The rankings are based on each teams total ROAD wins for the current season.
1st – $22.0 mil
2nd – $21.6 mil
3rd – $21.2 mil
4th – $20.8 mil
5th – $20.4 mil
6th – $20.0 mil
7th – $20.0 mil
8th – $20.0 mil
9th – $20.0 mil
10th – $19.6 mil
11th – $19.2 mil
12th – $18.8 mil
13th – $18.4 mil
14th – $18.0 mil
This would replace the $20 million TV revenue per team that is doled out prior to each auction. It cannot be tampered with (no cheating possible), and it put more of a premium on good team play and results (incentive).
The bottom five teams (those below $20 million in income) for the 2005 ABA season have been granted a ONE TIME exemption to the above income schedule and will receive $20 million for the 2006 auction due to league expansion. For 2007, and subsequent years, the schedule above will remain in effect.
SHELBYVILLE – The citizens of Shelbyville may have built the monorail to put themselves on the map, but needless to say, the baseball team is doing nothing for local commerce. As such, the team has decided to move down the road (past the lemon tree) to their new home in Springfield, and a new team name, the Isotopes. Monty Burns has helped to pay for much of the team’s expenses and has even agreed to sponsor an annual “Nuclear Plant Employees, Spouses, and No More Than Three Children Night” to help drum up support for the team. No word on whether Dancin’ Homer will show up to the opening home game.
HEARTLAND, USA – They were told they wouldn’t win a playoff game. They were told they didn’t deserve a playoff spot coming from such a weak division. They were told they couldn’t hang with the big boys of the league. Monday night the Heartland Holy Cows silenced all their critics and showed their true heart as they outlasted the powerful Express of Sugar Land enroute to claiming their first-ever ABA Trophy.
In a series that featured everything but stellar pitching, the Holy Cows finally found a way to awaken their bats after a season of underwhelming offense. Following their Game 1 trouncing, 12-4, at the hands of the Express, the Cows roared back to win the next four games in a row — starting with a 7-3 road win and then winning 7-4, 9-5 and 13-9 for a three game home sweep to clinch the series.
“You’d prefer to see a tight 1-0, or 2-1 ballgame in the post-season. By Game 5 it was clear that the pitchers were an endagered species, but we are certainly happy with the outcome,” exclaimed a jubliant Jason Dyniewski, owner and GM of the Holy Cows.
Good pitching certainly was scarce as the Cows finished the five-game series with a team ERA of 6.34 which only slightly outpaced the 8.36 ERA posted by the Express. With the exception of Cows’ starter, Bartolo Colon (2.84 in 6 IP), neither team featured a starting pitcher with an ERA better than 4.50.
Heading into the series, it was expected to be a battle of the Express offense verses one of the top pitching staffs in the league in the Holy Cows. Yet, the Cows finally found the offense that had eluded them for most of the regular season — led by the Championship Series MVP, 2B Jeff Kent, who batted .550 for the series.
“After several trips to the playoffs and coming home empty-handed, we understand the frustration of finishing the season just short of the ultimate prize. We tip our caps to the entire Express team — a classy organization that has certainly set a high standard of excellence in this league,” said Mr. Dyniewski.
In a bit of an interesting historical twist, the Cows had to beat the Blues and the Express to claim the 2004 Championship. These two organizations are the only 3-time champions in the history of the league which should provide the Cows with a healthy measure of their accomplishment this year.
“Winning one trophy was hard enough, let alone getting to experience this feeling mulitple times, ” said Cows owner, Jason Dyniewski. “We will certainly savor this moment and hope to carry this success into 2005 with the hope of working towards another ABA Trophy,” continued Mr. Dyniewski.
And so the 2004 season comes to a close with a surprising end involving a team that shocked the rest of the league with its determination. For a team that had everyone else exclaiming “Holy Cow!” at their remarkable accomplishments, perhaps it’s fitting that the only ones they didn’t surprise were themselves.
EDITOR’S NOTE
Boxscores from all playoff games are available on the ABA website.
Congratulations. Another ABA seson is in the books, now on to the post season!
The final 2004 stat files will be posted shortly for your review and use. However, I wanted to alert everyone to the news on the player overuse and 2004 fines.
With the 110% play time restriction in place for the 2004 season, we were able to see how player use was accreuing as the season progessed. There were some situations of overuse, but none of abuse, and relatively few overall in light of the new system.
The By-Law fine for player overuse is $300,000, deducted from the account immediately. Since the next time accounting is important, the fine will be noted now, but will be paid when the Owner’s renew their ABA team license for the 2005 season (all fines will be deducted from available funds when the annual monies are credited to each account).
Before certifying that a player was, in fact, to be fined… I also performed the old AB or IP calculation on them first. If a player at 111% or 112% was found legal by the old system of player use tracking, I voided the overuse fine. So, the only fines this post season are for players who went over the 110% metric of the software AND over the AB or IP metric. here is the list of violating players:
Mackowiak (Cows)
Freel (Rustlers)
Santiago (Rustlers)
Reese (69′ers)
Cairo (Mastadons)
LaRue (Shelby)
Patterson (Shelby)
VanDerWal (Shelby)
There were some 10 players who were spared fines by certifying via the old method. There were another 8 or so players that were over by the old method, but did not pass 110% on the game play percentage meter.
This list of fined players will each incur a $300,000 fine. these players are NOT elligible to play in the post season this year.
Congratulations to the league at large for a quite successful year in monitoring player useage.
On to the playoffs and the Hot Stove League!
Dateline Statesboro
Might as well call this Mudville. All season the fans flocked to see the local boys murder the ABA competition, but in 5 short games hopes were dashed as the lowly Cows from Saint Louise belted out the Blues yesterday.
There will be no Georgia Championship this year. No victory motorcade through Atlanta and ending with a celebration in the Georgia Dome. If the preliminary tirade from owner and GM Jim Molinelli is any indication, there might be a march to the sea capable of rivaling that by Sherman almost 150 years ago.
Molinelli was beside himself after the sweep in St. Louise was completed, and on the way home reportedly blew a gasket and decided to drastically alter the teams makeup for next season. Speaking on conditions of anonymity, sources in the Blues front office indicate that Molinelli screamed at and summarily fired several of the highest paid, key players on the team, having them clean out their lockers and leave while he waited. It appears that the power failure that appeared in the short series prompted the ouster of a significant portion of the teams lineup. Rumor has it that Vlad Geurerro, Jim Edmonds and Derrek Lee among others were ousted from the locker room and left to make their own travel arrangements home for the off season.
The team’s power and offensive drought can be clearly traced to those players, though some baseball observers point to the trade of Jason Schmidt as the key to the post season woes for the Blues. “Had Schmidt still been there, and Livan been the teams #2 going into these playoffs” observed Peter Gammons, “I believe the Blues leave Georgia with 2 wins, and also pick up at least Game 5 (Schmidt’s 2nd start) before returning home.”
Nonetheless, it will be a very Blue Christmas in Statesboro this year.
The Statesboro Blues, their management, the community and the Greater Atlanta Chamber of Commerce would like to thank Eric Holliday and the Tejas Black and Blue Jacks for QUITTING! This will bring Statesboro its first Division Championship and set up their eventual (and successful) run at the ABA League Championship for 2004!
The entire community is thrilled at the great success of the 2004 Blues after the worst season in franchise history in the ’03 campaign. But Dr. Molinelli, team owner and President had said ‘)3 was a retooling season, and that ’04 would bring the success that has followed this franchise since its inception. His prophetic vision and the yellow nature of the BlackJacks has turned this part of Georgia on its collective ear today. There is talk of a parade for the team, and a commemorative day in the calendar called “Q” Day, in honor of the Texas team laying down and folding.
It was noised about the league that the blockbuster deal that was made late summer by the BlackJerks was more than enough to seal the deal and walk away with the North Division and perhaps the ABA Crown. But Blues ownership was even more inspired by the move. And in a controversial move, bound to go down in the annals of ABA history as the brilliant turning point of this season, Molinelli traded AWAY start pitcher Schmidt and starting first basement and power guy Sexon against the advice of many inside the league. However, the move worked, propelling the team ahead, and in no small way is responsible for the cowering seen by the Texas BJ’s these past two days.
Let’s go Blues! Let’s go Blues!!
———-
The cowardly “quitter’ announcement by the BJ’s follows:
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2004 9:57 PM
Having their playoff hopes greatly diminished by a less than .500 road record and a 3 game deficit with 18 to play; Blackjacks management have decided to pull the plug and look to reload for 2005….