• The National Baseball Congress sets the rules for the standard of the game.baseball field image by Dave from Fotolia.com
  
  The National Baseball Congress is an organization based in Wichita, Kansas, that provides a national presence to a group of regional amateur baseball leagues. Individual leagues have local rules, but the standard is the Major League Baseball rule book. NBC sets the terms for player and team eligibility for its postseason tournaments.
  
  

World Series Qualification

• The NBC World Series is a 32-team double-elimination tournament played in late July and early August in Wichita. The teams are drawn from the 16 NBC premier leagues that are spread throughout the country. League champions are automatic qualifiers as are the teams who win the regional postseason tournaments that are run by those leagues.
  
  

Player Eligibility

• Some local leagues have age restrictions, but NBC does not have a cap on age. It is an organization designed to give college players maximum exposure to Major League scouts during the months after their college season ends. A player who signs a Major League contract during the season is ineligible to continue participating on an NBC contract. Players sign an agreement that ties them to a particular team in a specific league. The league must approve player movement from team to team once the player has signed the contract. These are amateur teams, so the players are not compensated.
  
  

Designated Hitter

• The NBC rules follow the American League when it comes to the use of a designated hitter. A team is allowed to have a player in the batting order instead of the pitcher, and that player will hit and not play defense. If the team chooses to have the pitcher hit or the designated hitter take the field at any point during the game, the designated hitter cannot be used any more in that game. In order to get more players in the game, an extra hitter is also allowed, but a team that starts a game with an extra hitter on the line-up card must play the entire game that way. Using this rule allows the team to have 10 players in the batting order each time through. The designated hitter and extra hitter may both be used in the same game.
  
  

Pitching Rules

• There are no limitations on pitching eligibility. Managers of each team determine when, how often and how long their pitchers remain on the mound. Once a pitcher is removed from the mound during a game, he cannot return to the mound to pitch again in that same game.