WBSC “introduces” street baseball

In a press release, the World Baseball and Softball Confederation announced the unveiling of the official rules of street baseball. This adapted form of baseball should be played out on the streets and should lead to more people playing baseball and softball.

Not much is needed to play the street version of our beloved sport.

– A rubber ball
– Any playing surface
– Five active players per team
– Something that can serve as a bat

The game will last five innings and no pitcher is needed as hitting is done by hand. This looks very familiar to the game we Dutch used to play in elementary school, which was called “slagbal.” The distance between the bases will be 13 metres (42.65 ft).

Even though “introducing ” the game of street baseball is a bit may be a bit far fetched, since my father used to play baseball in the streets in his childhood days when manhole covers served as the bases, it is a very good initiative IMHO. Baseball is hard to play in the streets with nowadays traffic. The reduced surface makes it easier to play on a small sandlot.

In combination with the release of the Official Rules, a new digital platform at wbsc.org/baseball5 has been launched in English and Spanish, and will soon be available in Japanese, Korean, French, and Traditional Chinese. The microsite features Baseball5 resources such as rules, videos as well as the latest developments on the new street discipline.

The instructional video has mainly been watched in Latin-American countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico and Venezuela; countries where baseball is still very popular and where baseball has always been played in the streets. IMHO those countries should not be the target group. European countries should be. Baseball is losing ground in Europe, so let’s hope this adapted form of baseball could help to revive the game again. But first kids need to get dragged away from the TV and their Play Stations.