Hold the phone.... 'tis gettin' weirder!
I did what I said I'd do... deleted the league manually. Recreated the league (by hand, no quickstart). Got it all set up the way I wanted to. Did the inaugural draft. Rearranged my roster a bit, promoted and demoted a player. Have not simmed past inaug. draft day yet. Saved the game and quit. Checked my OOTP folder again and voilá! Note this time, the CCBL does not even have a .lg folder! All the files are dumped directly in the saved games folder!
