I was so glad when I came in to work today and a bunch of our members were decked out in their Tigers’ shirts and hats! Today was the first day of the regular season for Major League Baseball and we planned a theme day around rooting for the Detroit Tigers. In the past, we haven’t had many members who talked about the the Tigers but lately a lot of our folks are very interested, so I thought it’d be fun to throw a theme day. I sometimes get a little nervous because there’s nothing worse than throwing a theme day and have no one actually dress up or do anything for it!
Anyways, I wanted to plan a baseball game that we could do with our group that everyone could participate in and I started brainstorming about how a dice baseball game could work. I previously read a couple ways to play baseball with dice but they seemed too complicated or uninteresting. Here’s what I came up with:
Baseball Big Dice
The object of the game is to throw the dice to score more runs than the other player/team. On each turn, the player throws two dice:
Doubles equals a home run!
Any combination that adds up to an odd number is an out. (i.e. 2 + 3)
Dice that add up to 4 is a single (one base).
Dice that add up to 6 is a double (two bases).
Dice that add up to 8 is a triple (three bases).
Dice that add up to 10 is a home run.
You can play any number of innings, so long as each team gets an equal turn to “bat” (rolling the dice). You can write on a chalkboard, whiteboard, or piece of paper to represent the four bases, so if a player rolls a single or double you can let everyone know they are on base.
During a team’s at bat, have one player roll at a time. After a player rolls, either mark them on base, count any runs that have come in, or declare them out (if their roll adds up to an odd number). Then it is the next player’s turn on that team to roll the dice. If a player rolls a hit and there is already another player on base, move the player on base an equal number of bases as the hit. So if there is a man on second base, and a player rolls a single, the player on second will move to third base and the player who rolled will go to first base. If a team has three players roll outs, then their turn at bat is over for that inning.
At our program, we have our members sit in a semi-circle and we use big, yellow foam dice because they’re easy to handle (and actually kinda fun because they bound all over!) I used a white-board to represent the bases and keep track of the runs and outs. The game could also easily be played on a table with regular dice if you had a smaller group of people.
Remember, you can be creative as you want with games like this. If you want members or residents to come up to an actual plate to throw the dice that’s a possibility. You can sing the national anthem before the game begins! We also like to split the room up into two teams and have each team designate a captain and pick a mascot. Its all about making it fun, so feel free to get creative with your group!
