Thank you for Visiting the GCAA Baseball Webpage.   Please make sure to read this in its entirety as GCAA has made several changes to Baseball.

We would like to welcome you to the upcoming GCAA Rec baseball season. In these tough economic times we had to make to changes in order to keep the cost of registration from going up. In order to keep the registration down it will require much more help from our parents in the way of volunteer help throughout the season. These changes will drastically reduce the fees we are charged by umpires and by doing this we will be able to keep our registration fee the same as last year. We are making some rule changes that will even out the teams and put an emphasis on coaching. We have to get our community involved more so that the baseball program can continue to grow and improve and it takes everyone’s help. We look forward to a strong and productive season. We will be having an open house on January 16^th at the Ag building to address any questions or concerns so please come.

Dates to Remember

January 30^th                            Registration End

February 2^nd                         Coaches Meeting for Player Assessments

February 6th                          Player Assessment – Coach Pitch & Little League

February 7^th                          Player Assessment - Midgets                  

February 15^th                        Teams Assigned and Start of Practice

March 30^th                            Games tentatively Start – Maybe Earlier depending on the number of teams we have

The Baseball Committee has made a few changes for the Upcoming Spring Season

General Changes (Not Specific to Certain Leagues)

• Coaches will no longer have to find sponsors.
• All players except T-ballers, including coach’s children, will have to attend the player assessment session.   Players who don’t attend will be moved to the waitlist. Players who are waitlisted will also be assessed. If there is a valid reason for not attending, a parent may email the Baseball committee at baseball@gcaasports.com BEFORE the player assessment.
• Teams will be scrambled every Spring. Players and parents are not guaranteed the coach from the previous Spring.
• There will no longer be drafts for coaches. Coaches will do the player assessments. The Baseball Committee will assign players to teams while trying to keep all teams equally competitive.  
• Coaches may have only one assistant coach before player assessments.   Please identify your assistant coach by emailing the baseball committee.
• Coaches will provide the baseball committee with a player assessment for each player at the end of the season.   This will enable returning players to avoid a yearly player assessment.
• It is the goal of the Baseball Committee to ensure that all players play an equal amount of innings in the field.   We cannot guarantee the same amount of at-bats but encourage coaches to balance the at-bats.   If a team has a full complement of players, no player should sit on the bench for more than 1 inning per every 4 innings while a team is in the field. This is recreation baseball and all players should play equally.   Parents should email the baseball committee if infractions are being observed.  
• Home teams for the late games will be responsible for turning off the lights.
• Players are guaranteed a minimum of 8 regular season games and a maximum of 10 games.   All leagues, except T-ball, will have a season ending tournament.
• Parents will be asked during registration if their child will be available (if selected) for All Stars for the 6 weeks beginning in June and ending in Mid July. GCAA expects that players accepting All Star bids will be able to fully commit to that 6 week period for all practices and games.

Changes or Comments for Specific Leagues

T-ball (5 and 6 yr olds)

No major changes.    It is the goal of the committee to have T-ballers play one weeknight game (that will end by 8pm) and one Saturday game (that will end by Noon).   All Tball games are tentatively scheduled for Westview fields.

Coach Pitch (7 and 8 year olds)

• No paid umpires.  Coaches from the Home team from the early or late games will umpire the other game that night.
• 5 run rule per inning per team.
• Runners will get one base per overthrow. This will encourage field players to throw the ball to the correct base and will also stop the constant running during games. More emphasis on station to station base running as well as runs being scored from batted balls.
• Games will start at 6:15pm and 7:45pm and will end at 7:30pm and 9:00pm respectively. Games can end in a tie.   If an inning is in progress at the ending time, then the game will end and the score will go back to the end of the inning last finished.

Midgets ( 9 and 10 year olds)

• 5 run rule per inning per team.
• There will be 1 paid umpire and 1 coach (home team from the game before or after).
• There is stealing but player cannot leave the base until the ball crosses home.
• There will be no stealing home or advancing home on passed balls/wild pitches.   Once again, more emphasis on runs being scored from batted balls.
• Pitchers will be limited to 2 innings per game. If a pitcher pitches 1 pitch in an inning, that will count as a full inning. Pitchers will be limited to 6 innings a week.  

Little League (11 and 12 year olds)