Delivering Baseball5 across London!

Baseball5 is one of the newest and fastest-growing forms of baseball and softball - a five-on-five, fast-paced format designed to be played with minimal equipment and maximum movement. All you need is a ball, an open area, and nine other people to get playing!

As part of the MLB London Series Legacy Programme, Baseball5 is being delivered across London by Crista Reed Thomas to charities, summer camps, community programmes, and more organisations, as a great way to introduce baseball and softball at the youth level. Over the past 6 weeks, Crista has visited 13 different organisations, with more than 300 children participating! The session are funded by the Mayor of London's Office.  

As a requirement for hosting a Baseball5 session, all of the organisers attended a Baseball5 activator course, run by BaseballSoftballUK, giving each activator the tools to run Baseball5 on their own following Crista's visit! 

Baseball5 isn't just used as an introduction to baseball and softball, as a number of organisations have used Baseball5 as a warmup before they let the kids play football or basketball. At other sessions, Baseball5 was the focal point, with an hour of playing round-robin games against each other in a small tournament format. 

The rules are easy to pick up, as Crista mentioned, "Some kids were confused by the rules at first, but only took a few minutes of hitting to understand and pick it up."

Crista added, "Many kids have asked at the end if they could use bats and gloves next time and play a full baseball game - a great sign that children are engaged and excited to play more baseball and softball!

For more information on Baseball5, click here, and to get involved in London, please email Jon Rye.