1. General Farm League game format
(a) Farm ball games are three innings in duration. The complete Farm league schedule is posted on our web site at www.brooklineball.org.
(b) On game day, please arrive at the field by 6pm. We allow fifteen minutes of warm up time, so that games can commence promptly by 6:15pm .
(c) Games take about one hour to play – about 10 minutes for each team to bat.
(d) Each player bats every inning. If a batter is out he/she leaves the base.
(e) Each child will be given a ball at the beginning of the season to take home. We strongly encourage you to practice throwing and catching with your child at home.
(f) Coaches pitch to their own team.
(g) Farm ball is not a spectator sport. We strongly encourage parents to help the coaches. The lower the child to adult ratio, the more the children will learn. So, please help your coaches with throwing and catching drills during the warm-up period for games.
(h) Weather related – issues – whether to reschedule a game or play it. For days of heavy rain, check the web site, to see if games are canceled. On days of light rain, the two coaches will decide whether to play the game or reschedule it.
Have fun. We want you and your children to enjoy the season!
2. Tips for game preparation
(a) Coaches should have a written line up card for both batting order and field position for each of the three innings of play. Unlike regular baseball, we recommend that you change the batting order each inning to help keep the young players' interest level. Some ideas are running the batting order by lowest to highest shirt number, highest to lowest, and then from the middle numbers. Having your line up ready before the game saves a lot of time.
(b) Make sure to share helmets with the other teams. Each team has four helmets This will help speed up the game by eliminating “helmet delay”.
(c) Assign a snack parent. Although food is not our focus, we recognize that the kids look forward to snacks after the game. The snack parent can coordinate assigning who is bringing the snack for each game.
3. Batting Team Rules and Safety
In your beginning practices before games begin, make sure the players know how to run the bases. A fun drill for the players is to line them up behind home plate and have each player run all of the bases. Make sure the player touches each base.
During an actual game:
(a) Absolutely only one bat per team. In an actual game situation, no on-deck batter is allowed. This is a safety issue.
(b) Designate a parent to keep the batting team players behind a certain spot at least 25 feet away from home plate and at least 12 feet behind the first or third base foul line.
(c) All parents watching the game – please watch your players' siblings and make sure that you prevent them from running behind home plate or onto the field of play.
(d) If a batter has an exceptional hit, such as a drive into the outfield, the first base coach may use discretion and allow the batter to take additional bases.
(e) Every player will bat each inning. Please announce to the fielding team when your last batter is up.
(f) Have a parent or coach as a first base coach and third base coach.
(g) Base Running. Have the batter learn to run through first base.
4. Fielding Positions
In beginning practice, make sure all kids know all positions, where they are. Quiz them. Make sure to rotate players, use different strategies to mix it up. Outfield to infield,
For actual games:
Recommended fielding positions are for a total of no more than nine positions: Infield: Pitcher, 1 ST Base, 2 nd base, 3 rd base, Short Stop, Outfield: Left Field, Left Center , Right Center , Right Field
Do not put more than one child at a position. This crowds the field.
We strongly recommend having at least two parents or coaches on the playing field to help instruct the players to:
(a) be in “ready position”. Encourage the players to watch the batter and the ball, rather than talking to each other.
(b) to stay in the assigned position. young players like to move around the field to where they think the ball is going to be hit. Encourage the players to stay in their assigned positions. This will reduce the incidence of players piling up on each going after the ball. Discourage children from going out of position to get the ball.
(c) Do not allow diving for the ball. Have the players field the ball from their feet.
(d) you may have the players switch positions during the inning, but limit the switching so that it does not delay the game.
Since most teams have 11 to 13 players, we recommend having each child play the field for two innings and having a parent or a coach take the remaining players way out into the outfield to practice drills with those remaining players including catching and throwing. You can throw ground balls, pop-ups to the players. You can have players throw to one another. Theses players will often get more practice during this inning than they will during their actual innings of playing in the field.
5. Crowd Control
(a) All parents watching the game – please watch your players' siblings and make sure that you prevent them from running behind home plate Watch out for children running onto the field of play
(b) Designate a parent to keep the batting team players behind a certain spot at least 25 feet away from the batting Tee and at least 12 feet behind the first base foul line.
(c) Have parents out in the field of play to help direct the fielders and runners.