A rotiserrie baseball league has ended in controversy, and I need all of you Commish and would-be Commish types to weigh in with your opinion.  Here is the situation:

Background: Big entry league, prizes out to 5th place as well as a best post-All Star game improvement prize.  The league has been around for decades, and is multi-generational with a fairly close knit group of family and friends that get together to draft plus a few new guys that have been added in the last few years that draft from a distance/don't know the rest of the league personally.  A new Commish, one of the young generation, has taken over this year though the old Commish still plays.

This year was an extraordinarily close season, with 3rd place through 7th place separated by only 2 points and the 2nd half prize finishing with 3 teams within .5 point of each other.

The issue: the league has a minimum innings pitched requirement from long ago (ancient esoteric rule that has never had to be enforced), suggesting that if a team doesn't compile 1000 innings pitched over the season they go to last in the ERA category.  Because the new Commish is trying to formalize the traditional rules, he notices this old rule and e-mails the entire league at the All Star break to warn that the rule is in effect and that 2 teams are in danger of missing the minimum.  One of the 2 teams makes the cut-off, the other doesn't.  The one that missed the cut-off (let's call him team C) finished 3rd in ERA (10 points in 12-team league).

The controversy: Team A finished in a 3-way tie for 4th and 5th place, and won the 2nd half award by .5 point over 2 others.  He had an 11 in the ERA category.  Team B also finished in a 3-way tie for 4th and 5th place, and lost the 2nd half award by .5 points (He had a 5 in ERA).  Team C finished out of the prizes anyway, so this decision doesn't really affect him.

Option 1: Now, if the ancient rule is enforced and team C is moved to last in ERA, 9 teams gain a point but team A doesn't.  This effectively screws Team A twice because he moves to 6th place (no prize) and he loses the 2nd half award by .5 points.

Option 2: But, if the ancient rule is not enforced then team B  gets a '5' in ERA even though only 6 teams technically finished ahead of him in that category.  This effectively screws team B twice because he has to split his 4th/5th prize with team A and he loses the 2nd half award to team A by .5 points.

Option 3: The Commish could get creative and drop the offending team C to a '0' in ERA without changing anyone else's score, but this is essentially the same as option 2.  Alternatively, the Commish could pretend that the offending Team C didn't exist in the ERA category so the score for that category is out of '11' instead of '12', but this would essentially be the same as option 1. 

Option 4: The Commish could talk with teams A and B and tell them that they are essentially going to have to compromise and share the disputed portion of the prize because it's a no-win situation.

(Side info that shouldn't really affect your decision, but is still true.  One of team A and B is a new player to the league that lives far from where the draft is held and has never met any of the rest of the league.  The Commish didn't choose option 4, so one team got screwed twice and has been bitching about it.  The one that got screwed is the new guy, and in his protests his only supporter has been one of the other new guys.  Several of the old guard in the league, including the former Commish, have come out in support of the Commish's decision and against the new guy.  The new guy keeps arguing his case to the Commish and cc-ing the player that won the ruling until that guy gets tired of all the bitching, and sends a snarky "when do I get the money that the other guy thinks he's entitled to" note to the Commish and cc-s the new guy.  It's starting to get ugly, and the new guy just keeps getting angrier.)

So...You're the Commish.  Which option do you choose? 

You're the old guard guy that won the ruling.  Are you pissed at the whining or do you feel like you should compromise?

You're the new guy that lost the ruling.  Do you just suck it up or do you go ahead and part ways with the league?