British Baseball Federation Youth Baseball Planning
Document 2023
Author: Paul Rance (Youth Affiliated Clubs League Commissioner)
Release Date: January 2023
Draft Number: V1.0
Amendment Number: 0
CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
2. THE VISION
BASEBALL IN 2035 - OUR PROPOSED GOALS
MEASURING PROGRESS
STATE OF PLAY TABLE
3. 2023 PLAN SUMMARY
BBF YOUTH SUPER LEAGUE
Age Brackets Youth Baseball
MIX & MATCH BASEBALL
MIX & MATCH GAMES
MIX & MATCH TRAINING
YOUTH NATIONAL BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS (YNBCS)
LITTLE LEAGUE
PONY
COACH & PLAYER DEVELOPMENT
4. SCHEDULE
5. CONTACT DETAILS
1. INTRODUCTION
This document will detail the plan that the British Baseball Federation (BBF) intends to implement for youth baseball in 2023.
The Board of the British Baseball Federation has established a 2023 Youth Committee charged with delivering and developing youth baseball in Great Britain.
The principal goal of the committee is to create youth Programmes, and competitions, enact youth development activities and liaise with BaseballSoftballUK on youth development activities.
This document contains a detailed proposal for the 2023 season, a budget, and a list of committee members for the 2023 Youth Committee to help with the delivery of the proposal.
The goal of this Committee is to develop a structure that can not only be a template for 2023, but also is expanded upon in the future and set a precedent that can endure for years to come.
In 2023, the committee intends to not only provide more baseball for all children but also assist clubs in attracting the attention of parents and the public.
The plan of the committee in 2023 is to not only deliver more baseball for all children but to support clubs with ways and means of getting your club into the eyesight of parents and the public.
Through our National Development Plan, we will examine how, as a governing body of sport, we can support and promote in the next years with the assistance of BSUK and MLB.
2. THE VISION
The British Baseball Federation’s development committee has created a British Baseball Federation development plan that includes a detailed picture of the vision of Baseball here in Great Britain. This plan’s primary purpose is to steer the various levers of the Federation towards a common goal of defining what it means to develop our sport and what baseball in Great Britain should look like in 2035.
The British Baseball Federation’s development plan has put the success of Youth Baseball as the single most important component in achieving the Federation’s development objectives. As stated in the document:
“Youth is our future: We acknowledge the central importance of engaging, retaining and nurturing youth participation and we are committed to providing a pathway from youth to adult baseball.” We want the sport to be built on 3 pillars.
BASEBALL IN 2035 - OUR PROPOSED GOALS
Below are extracts taken from section 4 of the British Baseball Federation Development Plan that details our vision for Baseball in 2024 involving Youth:
● GB Youth Programmes are providing an elite development pathway that contributes to homegrown players being capable of playing at the highest level.
● More clubs have youth Programmes and drive local leagues from Under 6 upwards with regional teams reflecting the international age groupings which move into national championships and a home nations competition.
● Baseball is played at schools across the country and is an accepted option on the sports curriculum and links to local clubs.
● A comprehensive national youth participation program across the whole country.
MEASURING PROGRESS
It is imperative that the above aims can be measured in order to identify and target effort and resources where needed against agreed objectives.
A key part of the vision will be to create realistic annual targets based on accurate data. These will focus on two main areas:
Quantity and Quality
• Youth teams at Tball, U10 coach pitch, U10, U12, U14, U16, U18
• Coaches
• Domestically grown elite players
Quality of Experience
• All participants
STATE OF PLAY TABLE
Where are we now?
Competition Structure
(Youth/Young Adult)
Where do we want to be in 13 years?
Tiny. Inconsistent. Club-driven local leagues from U6. Regional leagues match international age groupings (U12/15/18/23) and play national championships. Home nations competition.
National Teams Rolling internationally and on the eve (Q4 '23) of big rankings jump; success built on overseas-based players.
Great Britain Baseball is consistently ranked in the top 12 International Baseball Programmes. We are a regular fixture at the World Baseball Classic, the Premier 12, the U23 World Cup and the Olympic Games (in order of rankings points earned). The GB Women’s Senior National Team regularly wins medals at the European Championships
Where do we want to be in 20 years?
>> more regions e.g. transition to county leagues.
>> Men's/Women's teams comprised primarily of homegrown players. Winning medals in most European competitions and challenging for medals in World competitions. Major private and public investment.
and is challenging for World Championships
3. 2023 PLAN SUMMARY
This British Baseball Federation (BBF) Youth Committee will focus on reestablishing Youth Competitions as well as a variety of Youth Events to assist in establishing clubs with training
Further details on these areas can be found on the successive pages.
BBF YOUTH SUPER LEAGUE
The BBF Super league will be the official Youth League of the British Baseball Federation. Teams will compete in a round-robin format league structure with each team playing each other home and away. The super league for year one will be accessible to established teams only and will be available for teams to enter shortly for the 2023 season.
The 2023 season will consist of 4 events for all children to attend which will be mix-andmatch training. We will also be hosting the LLUK qualifiers & YNBCs.
The league's goal for the Federation will be to grow the number of teams that enter to develop the competition into a regional format and playoffs concluding with one Youth National Baseball Championship (YNBC) at the end of the season.
The league structure for all ages will follow school years to make life easier for UK Parents to understand. The age groups will be Tee Ball, U10 Coach Pitch, U10, U12, U14, 16 & U18, U21
League Structure & YNBC Structure for the future.
Age Brackets Youth Baseball
MIX & MATCH BASEBALL
Mix & Match baseball in Great Britain will be centralised youth events hosted at several clubs that will enable youth clubs within a certain region to bring all their youth players to one location to play and train.
The plan is to introduce baseball and make the baseball experience more like the larger clubs in the country. The plan is to show small clubs and kids what larger clubs and kids get to experience all year round so that kids come back from these events and tell other kids and build a buzz.
Often kids at smaller clubs do not get the game time or level of coaching the larger clubs get and this is often due to the number of kid’s different ages or volunteers to support.
So, we want to introduce these 2 areas going into 2023, Mix & Match Games and Mix & Match Training events.
MIX & MATCH GAMES
Mix and match games will be regionally based and once a month each region or group will host this event where all local clubs arrive together at one location and build teams so that the kids begin to get more game time as an example:
Midlands Baseball
5 clubs all with youth baseball:
● Club 1: 6 players, 2 age groups
● Club 2: 13 players, 3 age groups
● Club 3: 5 players, 1 age groups
● Club 4: 12 players, 3 age groups
● Club 5: 8 Players, 1 age groups
This then gives that region 44 players to form as many teams as possible at each age group it can, these kids will then be able to play games where historically the clubs with less than a team have not felt like they can join competitions or play games because of a number aspect. These regional teams will then form a regional team to take part in the super league or even grow bigger because of the excitement when returning to their own clubs and growth forms.
The youth committee will reach out to all clubs who sign up to support arranging these events as well, so clubs do not feel overrun with extra admin or pressure.
MIX & MATCH TRAINING
Many clubs have very good coaches, and many clubs have inexperienced coaches doing what they can to provide baseball in that area of the country. The idea behind mix-and-match training events is to make these a national event where coaches from all clubs with players attend, all the kids get to put together regardless of talent and not only learn from the more experienced coaches, but also see the other talent as well as grow from each other. These larger events will equally form a buzz around baseball for when the kids return to the prospective clubs.
These national events will be provided with a budget to host, with national umpires to attend and provided structured game-like scenarios, we want the host site to provide onsite amenities, if possible, like a tuck shop and the likes so these events can be a celebrated day like other Sports do naturally.
We are also aligning these events for club coaches to also get coaching support on the day to grow their knowledge of the game and help support training when returning to their prospective clubs.
We have also linked up with the National Coaches Commissioner about using these events as part of the coaching qualifications as well as the Umpires Commissioner to provide larger events for development not only for our kids but for the volunteers putting the time into growing the sport we all love.
We would like these locations to be shared with clubs with large areas that can host a multi-pitch event with the level of volunteers to provide an event on this scale.
YOUTH NATIONAL BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS (YNBCS)
The Youth National Baseball Championships, will be hosted by the BBF and be a sanctioned championship for our top-flight teams to compete in to become the national champions.
LITTLE LEAGUE
Little League® Baseball and Softball is played in approximately 6,500 communities across more than 80 countries around the world, but regardless of where they are played, each of them shares the same core mission. Little League believes in the power of youth baseball and softball to teach life lessons that build stronger individuals and communities. Joined together by one common goal, every local league is part of
One Team. One Little League
The Little League events will be set up and managed by the New UK DA Charles Truby who will reach out to all clubs eligible and manage all things Little League. Once teams have registered with the BBF then Charles will know who is eligible to play.
Below you will find the districts as well as the London district in detail. All of the districts that wish to be involved in LL this year, will be able to hold mix & match games as qualifying games. You will have to play in 12 games to qualify for the UKLL qualifiers. Each Region will be able to then mix the clubs together to form a regional team to play in the UKLL qualifiers this year. The boundaries are moving towards matching the original boundaries to match with Sports England for funding purposes.
The New UK DA Charles Truby will be in touch with all clubs with further information regarding registration and signing up. This should help all of our kids who are eligible to attend, take part and have equal opportunities to show off their skills and maybe attend the European championship or even Williamsport. UKLL regional rules will be, Games will be 1h:45min no new innings after 1h:35min. Run Limits for age groups, 4 runs for majors, 5 for intermediates, and 6 runs for juniors.
