You took the words out of my mouth. The problem with company leagues
is that it's so much fun, everybody wants to play, even if they're not
in a big company. The Pittsburgh league was founded around 1960, and
already in the 1968-69 team I remember playing in a "high school
all-stars" team. I also remember that around 1984, one of the old
Westinghouse players, nostalgic for the good ol' days when the league
was mostly company teams, wanted to organize a separate division just
for company teams. A plausible idea, but he didn't follow up on it.

There are also university teams (Pitt and Carnegie-Mellon), but
nowadays even they are full of ringers.

I'm not complaining, it's great fun. I like the "company team" idea,
but in the 2002-2003 season, there were NO company teams in the
Pittsburgh Chess League. I organized a company team in the early
1990's when I worked for Transarc, and it was probably one of the last
company teams. Even so, I had to put a couple of "outsiders" on my
roster in order to cope with illnesses, conflicts, etc.

(Tom Martinak) wrote in message . com...
"Ned Walthall" wrote

I think there also used to be an "industrial" league in New York City. And I
know Pittsburgh has a great league, but as I recall, it is not hooked up
with companies.

Information on the pittsburgh chess League is available at:
http://www.pitt.edu/~schach/ChessPA/...gue/wpapcl.htm

It originally started as an industrial league, but over time fewer and
fewer companies have competed, so that now clubs and independently
formed teams predominate.

- Tom Martinak