C.S.B.A.

CSBA Newsletter

2023 CSBA Newsletter:

2023 CSBAstat Newsletter - 01 - Designated Hitter

2022 CSBA Newsletter:

2023 CSBAstat Newsletter - 01 - Designated Hitter

(this tips are filed in our CSBA website under the PAGES -> CSBAstat Newsletters) (you might want to review last year's tips)

Alas, the R8.4 version of the world's greatest software did not anticipate the league going with the DH. Fortunately it doesn't barf when you enter your stats. But there are gotchas...

1) If your pitcher makes a fielding error, you must insert him into your Batting Entry (wherever you want) and give him a "NB". This needs to be done, otherwise an audit challenge will flag it.

2) When you go to add players to your Batting Entry, all rows will be empty except that your starting pitcher is put into the 9th batting position. You have to erase him and type in the right player.

3) If you use prefilled batting lineups, you can specify the lineup's name (eg Righty, Ohtani, I_Give_Up) on the Game Summary Entry window and its players get added to the Batting Entry. You can specify all nine of the batters on the Batting Lineup Entry window ... and CSBAstat will add all 9 players (it will not insert that starter).

R8.5 will arrive someday (July at the earliest). Until then, continue with R8.4 and dissing your team's performance.

2022 CSBAstat Newsletter - 01 - Data Preparation

Do you ever wonder where the CSBAstat data comes from each season? Most of you don't and assume that the elves perform magic a few weeks before the draft.

Here's the elves.

APBA (pitcher grade, steal rating, etc)

A young Joe Blake wrote a program 30 years ago that extracts draft-day data, from the APBA data file, into a CSV file. Alas it only runs on Windows XP (or older). Steve wrote a new program two years ago so that we can run it on modern Windows operating systems.

Joe manually removes all of the teams that are not in the draft. He also removes XP players. He includes MVP/CY if not already present.

Since the data file does not contain ZZ R K or +-, Ron and Steve manually enter the data into Joe's spreadsheet.

If mistakes are made anywhere along the above path, the draft XLS overrides anything printed on the cards.

Player Card Columns

An acquittance of Becky Blake at Prudential wrote a program 31 years ago that extracts the 36*2=72 result lookups from the APBA data file. Alas it, too, only runs on Windows XP (or older). Steve wrote a new program two years ago so that we can run it on modern Windows operating systems.

Player Images

In September of every active MLB season, Steve runs an internet program called ScrapeStorm to "scrape" MLB data. There are two scrapes:

1. A player salary for the current season

2. A player list for the current season and the associated URL for the player image

Scott Moore then runs a program to copy the JPG from the www and build a spreadsheet of player's name and JPG file name. He wrote the program.

All of this is done before the MLB season ends so that the player image reflects their final team jersey/hat and before the MLB regular season ends..

Player Rosters

The draft produces a spreadsheet of your picks, however bad they may be..

Schedule

Terry Parsons has various schedule templates, depending on the # of teams. He builds the current CSBA season after the Annual Meeting.

And then the real magic happens with all of the above

It all goes into a multi-tabbed spreadsheet that does a ton of lookups. This results in creating loadable CSV files for CSBAstat.

Alas, the common connection between everything is "player name" ... MLB website and APBA frequently don't match up.

And sometimes, the data is missing from the internet (eg salary) .

More work for Steve...

Team Images

And then there's all those JPGs that reflect the personality of your teams. There is roughly 700-800 of them for each team. They were manually gleaned from the internet over many years.

2022 CSBAstat Newsletter - 02 - Batting Entry Symbols

No foolin'.

If you had read the CSBAstat R8.0 release notes (received May 2021), you would have learned there are new batting entry symbols. And you might have entered them sometime last year.

1. Virtual Earned RBI ("^")

Background: I am sure that everyone has received an audit challenge where a "virtual unearned RBI" (symbol "V") was entered on a play where a "real RBI" cannot be awarded. The audit challenge says that an error must have occurred, so where is it? Sometimes there isn't one.

This new symbol allows a virtual RBI that is not due to an error, thus it is a "virtual earned RBI". To be specific, this can only occur when a run scores on a double play ("G"), a passed ball ("M"), a successful steal of home, a balk, or a wild pitch.

The new symbol is "^", which looks like an upside down "v" on purpose. This is a "virtual earned RBI" and must be entered in those situations, above.

Examples: G^ (batter hit into a double play and an earned run scored ... there is no real RBI on the play)

T^R (batter hit a triple and later scored on a balk ... the run is earned ... there is no real RBI on the play)

TQR^ (batter triples and steals home)

The old "V" symbol still exists ("virtual unearned RBI") .You use it when a run scored after the defense makes an error. Such plays cannot awarded "real RBI".

2. Injury Days ("Z")

Background: There may be times where a player is injured for many, many games. In the past, you had to spread the Y's across multiple entry fields because they are only 10 characters wide.. For example, a player injured for 19 games might get NYYYYYYYYY and NYYYYYYYYY and NY so the Y's totalled up to 19...

The new symbol ("z") represents five injury days, augmenting the continued use of single injury days ("y"). They will work like Roman numerals. That example, above, would be NZZZyyyy and it all fits into one entry field.

2022 CSBAstat Newsletter - 03 - 2022 season is loaded into CSBAstat (aka Play Ball!)

Data is ready to sync into your local database

What's New?

Added "Jr." behind this/previous year players who have the same name as their father (eg. Jackie Bradley Jr.)

The APBA Player Card window has personal information about the player (eg. birthdate, birth place). Also shows on the Roster report.

You can no longer update 2020 data (or any previous season's data).

What You Need To Do

Verify that your roster is complete (31 most excellent players, most of which sparkle like the diamonds they are)

Change your Personal Preferences season to 2022 ... it will still be 2020

Change your Reporting Controls (filters) season to 2022 ... it will still be 2020

Your first 26 drafted players are on your Activated roster movement list. The 5 other players are on your Demoted list. Adjust where necessary.

Update the website with your unavailability. A crappy team is not a reason to be unavailable. :)

Other

Scott Moore provided a place on the CSBA 'welcome' webpage for Newsletters and will be publishing these emails ... you do not have to store them or line your hamster cage with them.

2022 CSBAstat Newsletter - 04 - Roster Movements (Part 1)

Dear CSBA Guru

I rarely manage to make a roster movement change correctly the first time. Even though I think I do it right, my save prevents me from fixing it since I can't make any more changes for that date-time. So I back-date the change to make it right. What I do: I right-click down on a player and drag to the target roster status, and this little green icon moves. But what I don't realize is that I hadn't actually highlighted the guy I wanted first. I'm actually moving a different player.

Signed, Stupid In Waterloo

Dear SIW

First off, I hope you realize that you can do several roster movements for the given date-time. For example, move MacDonald to Demoted, move Blake to Activated, move Fickling to Injured. And only then do you click SAVE ... when you are happy. You should not move MacDonald and save. Then change the time and move Blake and save. etc

The instructions in the HELP window indicate that roster movement is a two mouse click operation:

1. Left-click on the player (to select the guy) .... then

2. Right-depress-and-hold to drag and drop him into the desired status (grid). SHIFT-Left-depress also works.

Oops ... you made a blunder -but- you haven't saved yet:

Suppose you realize that you've moved the wrong player? JUST DRAG&DROP HIM BACK TO THE GRID WHERE HE STARTED

Suppose you realize that you've dropped the correct player into the wrong grid? JUST DRAG&DROP HIM INTO THE CORRECT GRID

Then save...

Ohhhhh nooooo ... I saved the blunder and CSBAstat does not allow me to fix it:

Option1: there is a delete toolbar button. JUST DELETE THAT ENTIRE ROSTER MOVEMENT AND TRY AGAIN. After the deletion, a roster movement from a proximity date-time will display. You will have to change said date-time before you start the re-entry.

Option2: roster movements are chronological by date/time. JUST ENTER ANOTHER ROSTER MOVEMENT AHEAD OR BEHIND THE FAUX PAS.

More on roster movements in the next newsletter. It is a complex subject

2022 CSBAstat Newsletter - 05 - Roster Movements (Part 2)

The roster movement behaves slightly differently depending on how you get to the window....

if you navigate from …	The roster movement will default to …
the main CSBAstat window	today's date with a time of "50". Since you have not preselected a player, there is no default. You’ll have to select a player yourself.
any reporting grid with a Roster Movement Update toolbar button	today's date with a time of "2359" and it will locate the desired player on the Roster Movement grid (Activated, Demoted, etc)
the Game Summary Entry, Batting Entry or Game Pitching Entry	that game's date/time and it will locate the desired player on the Roster Movement grid (Activated, Demoted, etc)

If a roster movement date/time is identical to a game’s date/time, then the roster movement is deemed to be “just before first pitch”. Otherwise the roster movement date/time is interpreted to be “between games”.

Take care to make sure that you have the desired date and time so that events are chronological. The data entry windows will check that a player is “Activated” as of game date/time.

If the roster movement date or time is wrong, you can change either of them on the Roster Movement window as long as you haven’t made any drag/drops yet. If you have, just click CANCEL and modify them accordingly.

Have you tried scrolling through your YTD roster movements from the first one of the season? You’ll see your draft selections up to the present. Kinda kool.

2022 CSBAstat Newsletter - 06 - Roster Movements (Part 3)

There are quantity constraints on each grid and they depend on where you are in the season. For example, you can only have a maximum of 26 players on the Activated roster during the first 43 days of the CSBA calendar. But when the "September call ups" happen, you can have 30 players. During playoffs, the constraint is back to 26.

At no time will you be allowed to exceed the limit on a grid. Therefore, if you want to add someone to the full status, you will need to move someone out before adding (on the same date/time).

Oh and there are no limits on the number of players on the IL or demoted to the farm.

All of the roster movements on a given date/time are considered a 'grouping'. Each roster movement 'grouping' generates an English interpretation of the movement.

for example, *Demoted: Lesage,Gary

*Activated: Worse,Someone

There is a small button on every grid that resembles a "quill". Use this to personalize a roster movement for all of the players in that grid's roster movement before or after you have dragged & dropped the players. For example, "plunked by an Allen underhand changeup" or "what idiot drafted this buttock?!?". So have fun with it. It may be the only amusement you get on the diamond all year.

Normally roster movements stay within your team. For example, you move someone to the IL and promote someone be Activated. With trades, both teams see the same English interpretation. For example, "Foley,Jymboo traded to the Lost Sox" and "Smores,Scottito traded to the Vixens"

When you trade a player to another team, he will remain in your roster for the rest of the season. He may have had an at-bat or pitched an inning for you. He will want a World Series ring when you go all the way. You won't be able to use him after the trade because his status will not be Activated.

Aside: Trades are rare but CSBAstat has the support for do-it-yourself TradedIn and TradedOut in place. It just needs to be tested by the contracted Ukrainian QA team. Unsure why, but they are falling behind schedule. For now, Steve inputs the trade for you. Be sure to give him the date/time that you want.

NOTE: I try to make these newsletters about 1 page ... greater chance that you might read them. And they won't completely line the bottom of your budgie's cage.

2022 CSBAstat Newsletter - 07 - Scouting The Enemy

CSBAstat R8.0 (May 2021) introduced a really cool tool.

It is the team scouting report. And it tells you almost everything you need to know about the enemy's weaknesses.

The intent was to generate a one page report that you could print, scrutinize, mark up and bring to the round.

Alas it relies on the enemy having his stats are up to date.

For position players, it shows the enemy's:

- most frequently used players (the main squad), infrequently used players (the bench) and players on the IL

- their significant MLB data and APBA data

It looks for players on the Activated and Injured rosters. It does not show players on "the farm" (Demoted)

It does not show CSBA batting and pitching results because our data sample size is too small to mean anything to the scouts.

For pitchers, it shows the enemy's:

- probable starters for the next 4 games... You can deduce who you may face in the round

- reliever availability over next 4 games … You can see if previous rounds have exhausted the relief corps or if they are as fresh as a daisy

To generate this report

- Navigate to the Reports window and click on the Scouting report

- Change the report filters to the team that you wish to scout

- Change the effective date of the scouting ...the default is 'today' and that should be good enough

- Click on the 'Boy Scout' toolbar button and the generated CSV report will be displayed via Excel

Printing the report

- the report is conveying a pant load of information and space is limited (one page)

- because each manager has different default Excel settings, it might not fit on one page when printed

- the HELP text gives you a tip on how to overcome that. The tip is also at the bottom of the CSV report

Ciao

2022 CSBAstat Newsletter - 08 - Trouble in Googleland

GD4D (Google Drive For Desktop) came out during covid and was designed to replace the Google Bkup & Sync (aka 'Google Drive') that's been around for a long time. Over the past 4 months, Google has been making changes to the way it works. GD4D users cannot refuse or postpone these changes - they just arrive one night. That has recently happened to Scott L, Jim and Joe. Several others received the changest in April.

Alas, it directly affects the CSBAstat managers and ADMIN who had converted to GD4D this year. How so? The changes rendered the software Dead In The Water (DITH2O).

Here's what/why Google made the changes: https://support.google.com/drive/answer/10864219#zippy=%2Cwhat-happens-when-a-shortcut-replaces-a-folder-on-drive-for-desktop

CSBAstat is affected because it can only read files that are physically located on your hard drive. It doesn't care how they got there, For 19 years, reading files was easy breezy lemon squeezy.

The "files" in the new GD4D are "shortcuts" to the cloud. They are not physical files. They become physical files when the user opens the file and this initiates a request to have it downloaded. There is a slight pause but hardly noticeable. Microsoft's 'Windows Explorer' supports it well ... user eyeballs the 'files' in a folder, clicks on one of the 'files', GD4D downloads it and ta-dah ... the 'file' opens.

Good news -- CSBAstat can read the 'files' once they are local on your PC

More good news -- Jim found a way to make them always downloaded, just like before

Bad news -- programming changes are necessary but maybe not as difficult now

For GD4D users, you must wait for R8.4 sometime in the 3rd week of June. Until then, you cannot use the app.

If you are still running the original Google Bkup & Sync, you can still use the app.

2022 CSBAstat Newsletter - 09 - Oh (Big) Brother, Where Are Thou?

Debug Logging

You are probably aware that CSBAstat writes out a "log" file each time that you use the application. It produces a filtered trace of what you did during your session, thus giving the CSBAstat Support Team in southern Italy some debugging clues in the event of a rare application bug. These log files are written to a folder in CSBAstat's google drive. They stick around for a few weeks and then are discarded.

Big Brother Logging

CSBAstat is also logging some events that are written to a table within the application and kept 'forever'. Each event has the date/time and a filename that is applicable to the event. Here's a summary.

Event	Huh? What just happened?	What's the log date/time used for?	What's the filename used for?
Backup	A copy of your MDB database was created	Knowing when YOUR next backup should occur (as specified in your INI )	Nothing
Export	An export occurred, containing all of the changes made by YOU since the last time you imported	Nothing	Nothing
Import	An import occurred, containing all of changes made ALL MANAGERS since the last time you imported	Nothing	Prevents importing this file more than once
Signin	A user logged in	Your lifetime-to-date usage count is displayed on the main window	Nothing

Census Logging

You are storing counts of the number of rows in your local database. There's a count for each of the 34 tables. The counts are written to a special table called TableCensus. And like all tables that you update, it is exported (see above).

With every user doing this, the Administrator can make sure that the export/import process is going well. Everyone's census counts should be the same....

REMINDER: these newsletters can be found on the Welcome page of our website.

2022 CSBAstat Newsletter - 10 - Rule Changes

The current year's Rule Book is stored in our website (Pages--> Rules, Records, Charts). Did you know that you can use the Table of Contents to find what you want, then CTRL-LeftClick to jump to the detail page? This WORD technique does not work for the Index at the end of the document, but at least it tells you page numbers.

The Rule Book is also stored in our Google Drive's CSBA History + Rules folder. All seasons going back to 2000 can be found.

The Rule Book is a real page turner yet we rarely peruse it when it gets published. I know that I am almost as old as Frenchie, but rule changes get passed in the past and I have no memory of them.

So here's a summary of recent rule changes (copied from the Amendments of the Rule Book, as is).

March 2022

Stealing chart updated to permit a wider range of game scores for B thru E SAL runners

Hit & Run chart updated to permit a wider range of game scores for D thru F SAL runners

Clarified CY & MVP voting to be weighted on 5-3-1 basis

Clarified injuries ‘in last round’ to mean ‘your last 4 regular season games, before tie-breaks’

Added new 2020/21 MLB rule for relievers – 3 batter minimum, with exceptions

Starting 2023, draft eligible teams have changed: ¼-finalist teams, Jays, bottom 4 + x random

July 2020

Removed hit-and-run charts; revert to APBA rules for hit-and-run

Clarified emergency farm callup for 6th starter for make-up game from rainout or cancellation

Padding of stats removed in performance rewards section

Match to 1999 note, instead of 2011 notes about reworking of awards

March 2019

Added rainout makeup option

Added round 12 injury reset before playoffs

Updated pitching notes for unrated relievers (NO +/- or other grade improvement benefits!)

June 2018

Updated +/- cap

April 2017

Updated RP full-strength injury durations halved; no impact for hit-by-pitch

Updated sportsmanlike conduct penalties, batter to be plunked as J-2 (or worse)

Updated RP pitching penalties, to allow for pinch-hitting

Updated end-of-season days of rest / tiebreaker days

Updated draft +/- cap; removed starting 2018 draft

Updated draft eligibility – identification of XB players starting 2018 draft

Updated awards – no loonie for most record book entries

Updated rules for league leader qualifications in %-based stats

April 2016

Updated bases empty RP board rules

Updated charts at a glance

April 2015

Updated rules surrounding starting pitcher grade increases

Updated rules surrounding playoff roster registration

Updated rules surrounding extra days between end of season and quarter finals

Updated bases empty RP board rules

Updated charts at a glance

2022 CSBAstat Newsletter - 11 - GD4D

Thought I'd tell you about the Google Drive for Desktop (GD4D) and why it became a problem.

Firstly, google did not give its users any control over when they migrated them to GD4D. It just happened magically overnight. We did not experience it at the same time. It was kind of like Covid 19 ... someone came down with symptoms (aka the application crashed), then another, then another... Fairly soon, it was a CSBAstat googledemic.

I believe we were singled out because there are 12 of us sharing 28,000+ files. I imagine we surpassed some gigabyte or file count limit; Google felt we needed to save space on our hard drive.

Before these GD4D changes came about, a CSBAstat shared folder on your GD4D resembled the following example:

Mirroring: G:\My Drive\CSBAStat\CSBA\CSBAstat Images\CSBAstat Control Images

Streaming: C:\Users\YOURNAME\My Drive\CSBAStat\CSBA\CSBAstat Images\CSBAstat Control Images

Aside: Mirroring had a physical copy of a folder and its files on your hard drive. It was the closest thing to our original Google Bkup & Sync.

Streaming had shortcuts/pointers to the Google cloud. The amount of storage on your hard drive was the size of a postage stamp.

Microsoft Windows and CSBAstat could handle both paradigms

So look what they did. This is the what you see on your PC.

F:\.shortcut-targets-by-id\0B_lYhmikkFTfdmUzdEhPRWFiUE0\CSBAstat\CSBA\CSBAstat Images\CSBAstat Control Images

The drive letter (F) was assigned by Windows ... same as mirroring, above. It's just the next available drive letter after C, D , E, etc. Each of us can have a different one.

The path became a shortcut but not like a shortcut you put on your desktop. That ".shortcut-targets-by-id" appears to be a trigger for some logic along the lines of .... go out to the cloud to locate the entity "0B_lYhmikkFTfdmUzdEhPRWFiUE0" (that's what Google calls us). Then it access the CSBA directory structure under that crazy string of letters and numbers.

If the folder is local to your PC, it uses that. If it is only in the cloud, it downloads it just-in-time and keeps it local for awhile (2 days?) before sending it back to heaven.

Your CSBAstat INI file must specify the precise name for GD4D objects. After hours of experimentation, it became apparent that we have to describe our GD4D folders with the mixed casing of that funky character string. " 0B_lYhMikkFTfdmUzdEhPRWFiUE0" would not work - it is not an exact match.

Your INI now reflects this naming convention and CSBAstat knows to leave the casing untouched.

CSBAstat is once again rated a five star application. Hard to believe that youse guys are getting a 100% di$count.

The 2022 season introduced metadata to CSBAstat about your players, metadata that was not in the league Draft XLS when you opened it for the first time on the morning of March 12th.

No ... not anti-vaxxer or Republican or steroid user or transvestite or ...

Click on the APBA toolbar button for a 2022 player on your (or any) team and you'll see what I'm talking 'bout. [pause reading this and go look see]

Similar data from previous seasons will be loaded someday. It's been harvested from the internet, just not imported.

---

Thanks to Gary, the 2022 pool party date has been decided (August 20) as well as a rain postponement date one week later. Since the S'Moores have a swimming pool as well as moi, the location will be decided a few days before.

That social event was always the highlight of your summer. Why? It unveiled the CSBA team salary list. CSBAstat R8.0 provided a spoiler alert. There is a report that displays each team's total salary. Looks like the 2022 Lost Sox are going all-in this year, a strategy that has yet to pay off for other high budget pickers.

2022 CSBAstat Newsletter - 13 - Grids Part 1

This is the first instalment on using reporting grids. It doesn't apply to data entry grids (eg batting) as those grids are customized.

Width

Some reports have few columns. However, some have so many columns that you must scroll left-right using the horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the grid. CSBAstat tries to avoid that nonsense so it dynamically expands the width of the window to fit your monitor's width. Really!

By default, it leaves 2 centimeters to the left and right of the window. You can adjust this gap by adding the following to your INI file, stored in the "CSBAstat Application'' folder. And yes, zero is valid. If the #centimeters is too big for your monitor, then it will use zero because you're an idiot.

Sorting

Akin to Excel, you can click on any column on the header row to sort the entire grid. It toggles between ascending and descending order.

Navigating

The highlighted row of a grid is always black. The highlighted column does not vary in colour (see sorting, above).

The horizontal and vertical scroll bars are present if needed due to size. They operate like Excel scroll bars.

The up/down/left/right keyboard arrows and PageUp/PageDown keyboard buttons are functional. If the horizontal or vertical scroll bars are also present, there is wrap-around once you reach the grid boundary. Otherwise there's no wrap around.

Unlike Excel, CTRL-HOME and CTRL-END do not realign the grid to the first row and final row.

Next Week

Cells within the grid

2022 CSBAstat Newsletter - 14 - Grids Part 2

Last week's gridtalk was pretty boring if you are already an expert in Excel. If all you know is WatFile, then it was probably very enlightening.

So let's look at the grid functionality at the cellular level.

Data Entry

Sorry, these reporting grids do not support data entry. Lookie no changie.

Text Truncation

Sometimes the text in a cell exceeds the width of a cell/column. Right-mouse click that cell and a popup message will give you the full text. This is useful in these long textual string situations:

- PlayerAwardsEntry (award commentary is verbose and probably full of crap)

- RosterMovementReport (many players are involved in a movement or the customized reason for a roster movement is an epic)

- AuditChallengesReport (default column width hides part of a character string like a date)

Dates and numeric columns are rarely truncated. But if they were, this approach will work for them also.

Another way to make a column wider --- just like Microsoft Excel, use your left mouse button to grab the right edge of a header cell and drag/drop it to the right.

Toolbars Buttons That Navigate To A Report

Many toolbar buttons need some key data from a grid. For example, a player name or a game number. Prior to clicking the toolbar button, you only have to highlight the row ... not the cell. The software is smart enough to find the cell that it needs - you don't need to point it out.

Toolbar Buttons That Act On A Grid As A Whole

Click the PRINT toolbar button and the entire grid will be export to CSV. And as a bonus, Microsoft Excel is launched to display it right away. The formatting sucks but that's CSV for ya.

Click the FIND toolbar button and the subsequent locater window will help you customize a search. Give it a try, particularly on a grid with many rows.

Click the FILTER toolbar button (aka Reporting Control) to filter the selected rows in the grid.

Think you know everything about "type-ahead"? The answer is no but soon it will be yes.

The original CSBAstat release (2003) assumed you were lazy data entry clerks. So it reacted to each keystroke in a name entry field to determine if sufficient characters had been entered to uniquely identify a name. This functionality was called "type-ahead". For example, typing characters to locate the player "Jones,Davy" who has a nickname of "Monkees":

j ... not unique (there's another player whose surname starts with J)

jo ... not unique (another jo player)

joN ... yes that is enough characters to uniquely identify "Jones,Davy" as the player and the rest of the full name is filled into the name entry field

Obviously it is scanning every player's name in the roster. But is also looking at every player that has a nickname. Consider:

M ... not unique (there's another player whose surname or nickname starts with M)

Mo ... yes that is enough characters to uniquely identify "Jones,Davy" as the player and the rest of the full name is filled into the name entry field

The upper/lower case doesn't matter. Any character is valid (eg punctuation, numbers, special characters). Just don't enter a blank character.

You can't be expected to remember how many characters are needed to uniquely identify each player. So you kept typing until you were told to stop. Do you remember the years when CSBAstat would automatically tab to the next grid cell and the superfluous characters were entered into the cell? By the way, that functionality was called "automatic tabbing" (or autotab for short). For example:

M ... not unique (there's another player whose surname or nickname starts with M)

Mo ... yes that is enough characters to uniquely Jones,Davy and the rest of the full name is filled in and autotab occurs

Mon ... oh oh ... you're still typing ... 'n' is entered into the next cell

Monk ... oh oh ... you're still typing ...'k' is entered after the 'n'

Along came R8.0 (May 2021) and the functionality "automatic tab delay" (autotab delay) was introduced. The instant that uniqueness was found, all of the characters that you continued to type are thrown away. A miniature "stop sign" flashed on and off as long as you were typing. If enough seconds had passed since your latest keystroke, it decided that it is safe to autotab. And the "stop sign" disappeared.

The autotab delay defaults to 2.5 seconds. But if you are a slow typist, you might want to make it longer by copy/pasting this into your INI file ('n' is a decimal or integer bigger than 2.5):

[FCT_Form_AutomaticTabDelaySeconds]=n

Or if you are a super fast typist, you could make it smaller.

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