What if you could speed up the game, and made it longer…
What if you took the best parts of youth baseball, and got rid of all the standing around…
Imagine getting an entire season’s worth of live game-speed at-bats in a single weekend…
Or making 10 plays on defense (that’s like 9 travel tournaments worth)…
This summer, Hardball will start what will soon become every player’s favorite league format. Fast paced games, with lots of chances for “in-game” development. The 1st ever “Hit & Run” league will introduce a high speed format in short 1 week seasons that will include 2 professionally coached practices, and 2 games (double-header).
Each week is a different “season” with the following procedure:
- Player registration closes the week prior (parents don’t have to worry about missing games due to travel plans, just register for the weeks your player is in town)
- At the first practice, each player is drafted to one of several teams based on that week’s participation
- Each team is coached by a Hardball private coach or a coach volunteer
- Each player receives a custom designed DH jersey and hat
- Depending on the total number of teams for the week, each weekend there will either be a best of 3 series, or a round robin style tournament
- Winner for each division takes home some fun hardware
- Cost per player is $155 per 1 week season
- Coached by Dallas Hardball private coaches
Now for the cool stuff…
The High Speed, High Octane, High Scoring, Format:
- Each game will be a 4x4x4 or 5x5x5 format, yep, your read that right…
- 3 teams of either 4 or 5 (depending on age division) players will hit, play outfield or play infield in that order.
- Depending on the age division (divisions are set on a rising basis, so what your player will be playing in the fall, 7U/8U, 9U/10U, 11U/12U), players or staff coaches will pitch, 4 or 5 batters will roll through the lineup and get somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-15 at-bats per game
- 6 run inning limit per side
- 1:45 minute games
- Pitch/batter clock keeps the game moving quickly
- Players rotate to each of 4 or 5 defensive positions – a new infield and new outfield position – each inning, and bat through the lineup continuously getting a ton of game reps
- 7U & 8U coach pitch, 9U player pitch until 3rd walk (or 8th consecutive ball) then coach pitch for rest of inning, new pitcher every inning
- Ready Golf format (3 warmups then pitcher can start pitching, with or without a batter)
- Each inning consists of 3 sides (hitting, outfield, infield)
- Defense can score “runs” with double plays (2 runs) and 3 up 3 down (1 run)
- Team with the most runs at the completion of the last inning wins the game.
- In Double-Header match-ups, the team with the most runs after the 2nd game is the overall winner for the match-up.
- In the round robin format, teams get points based on their finish (5 points for winning the game, 3 points for 2nd, and 1 point for 3rd). After all games are played in a weekend, the team with the highest point total wins the week and takes home the Championship Chain (if they are defending their crown the following week) among other prizes.