Let me give you an example using the Yahoo Baseball game which just started, since I'm not really familiar enough with the hockey players names, and we both know the baseball guys.

The roster for baseball was set up to theoretically resemble a real MLB team; you can have 14 offensive players and 11 pitchers, or 11 offensive players and 14 pitchers - whatever configuaration you want.

You can have flexibility about who to play on offense and take advantage of certain pitcher-hitter matchups by carrying more hitters and fewer pitchers, or you can have more flexibility with your pitching ty carrying more pitchers and fewer hitters.

But you can only carry 25 players.

On offense, just as in real baseball, there are 9 starting positions (including the DH).

But there is a maximum number of games played at each offensive position of 162.

Now, Just Lou's starting third baseman is Alex Rodriguez.

Since the season is 162 games long but spans approximately 180 days, there will be days when he will not have a starting centerfielder - those days that the Yankees don't play.

JL can fill in the centerfield position with one of his bench players on those days (asuming he's carring a substitute third baseman), but since the maximum number of games he can have at third base during the season is 162, then every game he uses someone else at third base, that's one less game of A Rod that he can have..

If his back-up third baseman is, say, Gerald Atkins of Colorado, and Colorado happens to be playing the first 18 days that the Yankees aren't, and JL uses Atkins at 3B instead of A Rod so he can have a full team on the field every day. then when the season is 162 days old he will have used up his entire alotment of games at 3B, by having 144 games of A Rod and 18 games of Atkins.

Obviously, theoretically at least, he would be better off not having a third baseman on the dys the Yankees are off and using as many of those 162 games as he can with A Rod.

In other words, every day of Atkins is one less day he can have of Rodriguez.

If there were no limit on the number of games at each position, then every day the Yankees were off he would want to fill in with another third baseman (Assuming he had one. However with the multiple position eligibility that som many players have, it's easy to construct a 4 or 5 man bench and cover every position).

The problem with that is, is that it brings the luck of scheduling into play.

For example, let's say that Colorado is also off on the same day that the Yankees are on 13 of the 18 days that the Yankees don't play.

In that case, JL has no chance to substitute for A Rod with Atkins on the days the Yankees are off on 13 days.

So the most gaems he can get for the whole year at 3B would be 167.

A Rod's 162, plus the 5 that he could use Atkins on the 5 days that Colorado plays and the Yankees don't.

But suppose that in the same league my third baseman is David Wright, and my substiute at 3B is Joe Crede of the White Sox.

If, by simple luck of the schedule, the White Sox just happen to be playing on 13 of the 18 dyas that the Mets aren't, then I could wind up with 175 games for the seaon at 3B.

Wringht's 162, plus the 13 that I could use Crede on the 13 days that the White Sox plays and the Mets don't.

This problem would be especially magnified in hockey, where the teams only play 3, 3, or 4 tims each week.

there sould be a week when my 3 best centers play a total of 9 times, and my substitutes are all off on the same day that my regulars are, while your 3 best centers also play 9 times during the week, while your subsitutes happen to be off on different days, which, purely by luck of the schdule, will give you extra games.

In other words, a limit on the number of games at each position puts everyone on equal footing and does not give one player the chance to have more games at a position than someone else simply because of the way the schedule happens to fall.


In baseball, if A rod gets injured and misses a game, then JL will use his back-up third baseman on a day when the Yankees are off, to make up that game.

Or if A Rod happens to be facing a pitcher that he's 0-20 against lifetime and JL's back-up guy, Atkins, happens to be playing at home at Coors where he has a lifetime record of 10-16 with 3 homers against the pitcher that he's facing that day, the JL may make the intentional decision to bench A Rod and play Atkins, but those to examples are what the bench is supposed to be for.

It's not supposed to be there to give me an advantage over JL because of the way the schedule happens to work out with respect to which days which teams happen to have their off-days.