GHBLGarfield Heights Baseball League · Online Play in 3-D
FREE PLAY Every diamond is open for practice. Next league games: 3:00 PM today, in 12 h 34 min.
Rules

How GHBL works

The 3-D batting game, the game times, the leagues and the way every score is checked, in plain words.

Playing in 3-D

  • Your view: you stand in the batter's box behind home plate. The pitcher winds up on the mound, the ball comes in, and you swing.
  • Swing: tap or click the field, press the big Swing button, or press the space bar. Take (or Skip on the tee) lets a pitch go by.
  • After contact the camera follows the ball into the outfield, fielders chase it and runners move around the bases.
  • Flat view: the button under the field switches to a simple flat drawing of the same game, for older computers or anyone who prefers less motion. Phones and computers that cannot show 3-D get the flat view on their own. If your device asks for reduced motion, the camera stays still.

The game: you bat three innings

Each league game is your team batting three innings at your league's diamond. An inning ends after three outs, or as soon as your team scores its fifth run of the inning (the rec-league run limit: extra runs on that play do not count). The computer does the pitching and the fielding.

  • Timing is everything. Swing when the ball reaches the plate (on the Tee Field: when the meter is in the green). Each field has a contact window, for example ±125 ms at the Corner Lot. Swing outside it and you miss.
  • Contact quality runs from 0 to 100: the closer to the perfect moment, the higher. Under 20 is a foul ball.
  • Direction: a little early sends the ball to left field, a little late to right field, right on time to center.
  • Distance grows with contact quality (each field adds its own boost; Lakeside adds the wind). Past the fence in that direction is a home run.
  • In the last fifth before the fence a ball is a triple (12 in 100), a double (43 in 100) or caught at the wall (45 in 100).
  • In the outfield it drops for a single or is caught, and in the infield it is an infield single or a ground out. How often depends on the field (table below).

Balls, strikes and tries

  • Tee Field: five tries per batter (a miss, a foul or letting the meter pass all count). After five, the batter is out.
  • Coach Pitch: every pitch is a strike. Three strikes is an out; a foul with two strikes does not count.
  • Kid pitch (Corner Lot, Lakeside, Under the Lights): balls and strikes. Swinging at a ball outside the box is a strike. Four balls is a walk.

Running the bases

  • Single: runners on second and third score, a runner on first goes to second.
  • Double: runners on second and third score, a runner on first goes to third.
  • Triple and home run: everybody on base scores.
  • Walk: only runners who are forced move up.
  • Fly out with fewer than two outs: a runner on third tags up and scores.
  • Ground out with fewer than two outs: every runner moves up one base.

The leagues

  • Game times: league games start every day at 3:00, 5:00 and 7:00 PM Eastern. The lobby opens 15 minutes before each one.
  • Each diamond runs six-team leagues. A league forms when a team joins and starts at the next game time. Empty spots go to house teams, which the computer runs and which bat with the same game.
  • Every team plays every other team once: five games, one at each game time in a row (for example 3:00, 5:00 and 7:00 today, then 3:00 and 5:00 tomorrow). A game can be played from its first pitch until 90 minutes later.
  • Both teams bat at the same diamond. More runs wins; a tie stays a tie. If only one team bats in time, it wins by forfeit. If neither does, the game has no result. A game you started in time can be finished up to 30 minutes after it closes.
  • Standings: wins, losses, ties, PCT (a tie counts as half a win), games back, runs for and against. Order: PCT, then run difference, then runs scored.
  • When a league ends, every people's team that batted at least once joins the next league at that diamond.

How scores are checked

The browser never tells the server a score. When you press Play ball in a league game, the server picks a new random set of pitches. Your browser sends back only the times you swung. The server replays those swings through the same rules and records its own result. Starting a game again gives new pitches, and the number of starts is kept with the game; a league game can be started at most 3 times. There are no prizes, just bragging rights.