When your kids and their friends want to play baseball, you may have trouble finding a field for them to use. However, they don't need to go to a field to work on their skills and have fun playing the game. There are a variety of baseball-related games they can play in your backyard.
Wiffle Ball
Wiffle Ball is played with a perforated plastic ball that does not travel as far as a baseball and will not damage valuable items in your backyard or neighbors' houses. Your kids can play Wiffle Ball with as few as two players, a batter and a pitcher, or as many as 10 players, with five on each team.
You need six cones, a home plate and a pitching rubber to set up the field. Position home plate in the corner of the yard with the pitching rubber about 20 feet away. Mark the foul lines diagonally from home plate with cones at approximately 25 feet, 45 feet and 65 feet along both lines. This creates four specific areas: a single area in front of the cones positioned at 25 feet; a double area between the cones at 25 and 45 feet; a triple area between the cones at 45 and 65 feet; and a home run area beyond the cones positioned 65 feet from home plate.
Like baseball, Wiffle Ball is divided into innings. Each team bats during each inning until the defensive team records three outs. If each team has five players, then the defensive team must have a pitcher, a catcher, and one play in each of the double, triple and home run areas.
Players are not allowed to cross into another area to field the ball. Outs are recorded if a defensive player either catches the ball before it touches the ground or catches a ground ball before it stops moving. The batter can also strike out if she swings and misses three times.
Foul balls also count as strikes, but the batter can't strike out on a foul ball. The batting team scores runs when imaginary base runners cross home plate. One base is awarded to each runner if a batted ball stops in the single area, two bases area awarded if the ball stops in the double area, and so on. The team with the most runs after nine innings wins the game.
Home Run Derby
If you are a Major League Baseball fan, you may like watching the home run derby, which is played annually between some of the game's best sluggers the day before the All-Star Game . Your kids can also play home run derby in your backyard with a Wiffle ball or tennis ball. You can play on a Wiffle Ball field as described above or try to hit the ball over a fence if you have one.
Each player gets 10 outs to hit as many home runs as possible. Each swing that doesn't result in a home run counts as an out. If the batter does not swing at a pitch, it doesn't count as an out, even if the pitch travels through the strike zone. The player who accumulates the most home runs wins the game.
Target Practice
This game requires players to throw a baseball accurately to score points. Attach a net to a tree branch in your backyard. Use duct tape to construct a square with 2-foot edges around the net, which should be about 4 to 5 feet off the ground.
The players stand about 20 feet in front of the net and take turns throwing a baseball at the target. They get one point each time they throw the ball inside the square.
The player who accumulates the most points after a specified number of throws wins the game. The players can back up away from the net to make the game more difficult. If you don't have a net, you can tape a square to a fence and have the players throw tennis balls instead of baseballs.
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