Maybe you’ve been playing fantasy baseball for a few seasons now. You watch as the season goes on, and think to yourself, “I could do a better job than this commissioner.” Perhaps it’s how he handles trade vetoes, or smack talk that goes beyond the bounds of propriety, or any of a dozen other things. In any event, you decide that you will run your own league next season. How do you prepare and what can you expect? Read on for advice.

1. Draft a comprehensive constitution. A detailed operating manual will be essential to have a (relatively) trouble-free league. Your constitution should address such items as:

1. roster size
2. hitting and pitching categories
3. type of league (roto, head-to-head, points, some other variation)
4. time limits for setting lineups
5. trade policy
6. keeper rules
7. penalties for league rule violations
8. entrance fees and prizes
9. process to admit new members/replace departing owners
10. means of amending the constitution, bylaws or rules

Your constitution or bylaws will be a valuable source of support when disputes among the members arise. While you don’t want the constitution to be overly lengthy, do attempt to cover every possible problem or issue you can envision arising. Don’t worry, if you encounter issues during the course of the season you never imagined. Take notes and amend the constitution next season to address these items. Tip: draft your constitution with a provision that allows you to amend the document without league approval (see ¶4 below).

2. Decide on your league’s settings. This was mentioned above, but it is important to pay particular attention to how the league will operate. Decide how many teams you will allow in the league, how many roster spots each team will need to draft, what positions comprise the active lineup, if you want to limit the number of players allowed at certain positions. You will need to pay close consideration to statistical categories that the players accumulate. Personally, I like 5×5 (runs, RBI, hr, average, stolen bases, wins, ERA, WHIP, K, saves) or 6×6 (add OPS or Slugging and Holds to the 5×5 categories) leagues, but to each his own. I’ve seen leagues with 20 categories of stats where fielding and negative hitting and pitching categories are used. Think about what sort of performance indicators are important to you and set up your stat categories accordingly.

3. Fill your league’s owner positions with active managers. Whether you decide on an 8 or 20 team league (or some other number), make sure you can fill the owner’s slots with active managers. It works out nicely if you can fill your league with friends that know will play out the entire season, but don’t be surprised if the last place teams lose interest after the All-Star break. If there is a financial incentive involved, you are less likely to suffer through apathetic ownership issues, but we all know winning is more fun than losing. If you have a prize structure, rewarding owners for winning a category will help to stimulate season-long interest. If you can’t find enough friends or acquaintances to fill all the owner positions, make sure your league’s host (Yahoo, ESPN, CBS, etc.) allows you to open your league up to the public. If you need to find additional owners, make use of the site’s message board as well as any other message boards available at fantasy resource sites you frequent. Avoid disappointing your league by having to reschedule your draft because you don’t have all the owner positions filled.

4. Always remember that it’s “your” league. Early on in any season, I let my owners know that my league is not a democracy., but rather a constitutional monarchy in the traditional sense. I make the final decisions, even if that decision is to open an issue up to a league wide vote. I may appoint a committee to review trades that seem suspicious, but generally the commissioner is empowered to make any and all decisions regarding league affairs, including dispute resolution between owners. Other leagues open every trade up to possible veto, where a certain number of negative votes will stop a trade from being completed. Democracy or monarchy, the decision is yours, but communicate your choice early on to avoid later turmoil.

5. Determine how disputes will be resolved. This goes hand in hand with how you’ve decided to run your league. Opening up any dispute to a league wide vote is fair, but only if all owners participate in the process. Having a commissioner’s final vote, or appointing a committee to oversee any differences of opinion works best in larger leagues, especially if there is a risk that the lower tier teams will have lost interest in participating in league matters at some point during the season.

6. Deal swiftly and harshly with collusion. Collusion is the biggest problem in fantasy leagues, outside of owner apathy. When two teams decide to work in concert to help one team at the expense of the other, collusion exists. Not only is this grossly unfair to the team losing the better player(s), it impairs league integrity and affects all other teams that are playing by the rules. Therefore, if collusion is suspected, it is essential that you investigate promptly, by contacting the two team managers with regard to their thought processes in entering the proposed trade. If you are not satisfied with the explanations, either ask the league’s remaining owners if they would veto the trade, appoint a committee to rule on the trade or disallow it if you’ve taken my advice and are running the league as a monarchy. If you allow unfair collusive trades to occur, you’ll soon be without any league participants at all. Be advised, I let stupid (in my opinion) trades go through all the time, because I understand not everyone values players the same way I do. Stupid trades and collusive trades are two different things. One hurts the unsuspecting owner, the other impairs league integrity.

7. Communicate with your owners. Keep the lines of communication open at all times. If your league is populated with your friends, obviously you’ll be open to talking about league matters. Even if your league is filled with fantasy players from the general public, though, make certain your league mates can e-mail you with questions, comments and concerns at a minimum. I always make sure my e-mail address is available to the league participants at the beginning of the season and I try to obtain the other managers e-mail addresses prior to the draft. I then set up a group in my e-mail program for each league I run so I can send out announcements to the league.

8. Collect the entry fee as early as possible. You will want to collect any entrance fees prior to the draft. Once the draft is completed, a disgruntled owner will be unlikely to submit the fee if he feels his team doesn’t have a chance to compete. By collecting upfront, you have one less concern during the season such as berating a deadbeat owner into paying his agreed upon share. This is fair for all involved, especially if you’ve already set forth the winning prize structure in your constitution or rules.

9. Distribute prize money as soon as possible. This is another tip to keep from having disgruntled owners in your league. Once the final statistics for the season are issued by the host site of your league, send out an e-mail to all owners (a group e-mail that you set up per ¶7 above) setting forth the winners and their prize amounts. Then send out the prizes as soon thereafter as practical. Don’t keep your winners waiting; it makes them grumpy and distrustful. By distributing quickly, you make the winners want to come back to your league next year.

10. Get and stay organized. Do whatever it takes to keep your records in order. If an owner asks a question about league history (this season or past seasons), make it possible to locate the answer promptly. If you need to contact an owner, know where you’ve stored his contact information. Keep detailed records in the event of a computer crash or worse yet, a host site crash (those who played in ESPN’s free league in 2007 know what I’m referring to here). No one else is going to keep track of all the minutia involved with your league, it’s up to you. Make it easier on yourself and start out with a plan and adhere to it. If necessary, adjust to changing circumstances, but be diligent about record keeping.

11. “Illegitimi non Carborundum”. Whatever happens during the season, have fun. You play fantasy baseball for enjoyment. Don’t let your decision to take charge of your own league suck all the pleasure from the game. While the other owners can sometimes be a pain, and dealing with rule violators is unpleasant at best, remember the words above and never let them take away the charm of this great pastime.