Rules

Blitzball is played between two teams over three innings. The teams bat in turn, and the team scoring the more runs wins.

A game may end level. It is then a tie.

Comment: The game is adapted from baseball and keeps its shape: innings, outs, a count of balls and strikes, and runners advancing round the bases. Everything that differs is set out in the sections that follow. Except where these rules expressly adopt a baseball rule, nothing absent from this page should be assumed to follow the baseball one.

A team has no maximum and no minimum number of players. Sides are made up on the night from the players present.

There are no rosters. A player's team is the team that player most often turns out for. It binds nobody and confers nothing.

The home side is decided by a coin flip before the game starts. The home side bats second.

Comment: There is no home ground — one yard serves both sides — so home and away decide nothing but which side bats last.

The batting order is fixed before the first pitch, and every player in the order bats. A player arriving after the order is set does not enter that game.

A player who leaves part way through a game keeps their place in the order, and that place is an automatic out each time it comes round.

Batting out of order carries no penalty.

A player may turn out for both sides. A player doing so bats only, and may neither field nor pitch for either side.

Play is with a plastic blitzball and a plastic bat.

Bat grips are permitted. Fielding gloves are permitted.

The umpire has the final say on whether any item of equipment may be used.

The field is agreed by the players before the game. There are no fixed bases. Boundaries are taken from the surroundings — across the road is a home run, and so on.

The pitching rubber stands 43 feet from home plate, measured from the back tip of the plate to the front edge of the rubber. This distance is fixed and is the same on every field.

The foul lines run from the back of home plate, 90 degrees apart, or anywhere between 70 and 90 degrees. The ground between them is fair, and the ground outside them is foul.

The double line and the home run line are arcs struck from home plate, each the same distance from it all the way round.

The double line stands at 90 feet, or anywhere between 75 and 95 feet. The home run line stands at 115 feet, or anywhere between 100 and 130 feet.

Each line is set out with at least 5 markers: one at each foul line, one straight out from the plate, and one between each pair.

A line runs between its markers. Where a ball settles between two markers the line is judged by eye, and the umpire decides.

The sides may agree before the game whether to set the home run line out with markers, or to take it from a boundary the ground already offers — a road, a fence, a line of trees.

Comment: Marking out is meant to take minutes, and a cord does all of it. Staked at the plate and marked at each distance, pulled taut it strikes a true arc wherever it is swung. Walk it round to the 5 stations and drop a marker at every mark on the cord in passing: one circuit lays out both lines, nothing needs painting, and the same cord gives the same field in any yard.

The single area runs from the back of the mound to the double line, and the double area from the double line to the home run line. The ground beyond the home run line is the home run area.

There is no triple area. The lines are set for each field before the game.

Comment: The areas cover the whole ground between and outside the foul lines, so there is nowhere a ball can be that is not in one of them, and no rule for a ball leaving the yard is needed. One that runs into a neighbour's garden is at some distance and some angle like any other, and is scored accordingly. Where that cannot be seen, the umpire calls it.

An obstruction standing within the field of play — a tree, a building, a wall, a pole — is part of the field, and not a boundary of it.

A batted ball striking such an obstruction remains in play, and is scored by where it comes to rest rather than by the distance it would otherwise have carried.

A batted ball that lodges in an obstruction within the field and does not come down is a ground rule double.

Striking an obstruction is not touching the ground. A batted ball that has struck one and has not since touched the ground may be caught for an out.

A batted ball reaching an obstruction beyond the home run line in the air is a home run. Its returning to the field of play does not alter that, and it cannot then be caught for an out.

Comment: These turn on where the obstruction stands, not on where the ball finishes. A ball struck with home run power into a tree inside the field, dropping into the single area, is a single; one striking a roof inside the field and caught before it lands is an out. The same ball striking the same tree standing beyond the home run line is a home run, and stays one however it comes back.

The ground rules in this section are the default. Both sides may agree any variation of them before the game starts, and a variation so agreed governs that game.

Where no variation is agreed, the rules as written stand. No ground rule may be agreed after the first pitch.

Where a question arises during a game on a matter not agreed beforehand, the umpire decides, and that decision governs the rest of that game.

Any player may pitch. A team may change pitchers at any point. There is no limit on how often a change may be made, and no minimum period a pitcher must remain in the game.

Delivery is unrestricted, provided the pitch is thrown from the mound. Overhand delivery is customary.

A pitch not thrown from the mound is an illegal pitch, and is called a ball. The umpire decides whether a pitch is legal.

There is no limit on the speed of a pitch.

The batter stands in the batter's box. The rules of Major League Baseball govern the batter's position in the box and departure from it, and are adopted here in full.

A batter outside the box when the pitch is delivered is awarded no base if the pitch strikes them.

A batter receiving five balls is awarded a base. A batter charged three strikes is out, and the out is a strikeout.

A pitch swung at and missed is a strike.

A foul ball with none or one strike is a strike.

At two strikes, one foul ball does not alter the count. The next foul ball in the same at bat is the third strike, and the batter is out.

A foul ball caught in the air is an out, whatever the count.

A pitch touching the bat is a batted ball, whether or not the batter offered at it.

Comment: A batter at two strikes therefore has one foul to spare and no more. The spare is per at bat: a new batter starts with it again.

Comment: The rule on a pitch touching the bat settles the case of a batter who holds the bat still and is grazed by a pitch passing behind them: contact makes it a batted ball, so it is a foul ball, and with fewer than two strikes that is a strike. This is the baseball outcome and it is how the league has called it before.

The strike zone is a physical target mounted on a stand behind the plate.

A pitch passing within the target is a strike. A pitch striking the border of the target is a strike, however slight the contact and however late the ball breaks. A pitch striking the stand supporting the target is not a strike.

The decision of the umpire is final.

The zone is divided into numbered boxes, 1 to 9, read left to right in rows of three. The areas outside it are numbered 11, 12, 13 and 14. There is no zone 10.

All charts are drawn from the catcher's view. The numbering does not change with the handedness of the batter.

Comment: Because the numbering is fixed, a given number is always the same physical location: zone 1 is up and in to a right-handed batter and up and away to a left-handed one. Pitches are therefore described as left and right, and never as inside or outside, which have no single meaning across batters.

A pitch striking the batter on the head is a hit by pitch, and awards the batter a base immediately.

A pitch striking the batter anywhere else is called a ball on its first occurrence in an at bat. A second such pitch in the same at bat is a hit by pitch, and awards the batter a base.

A batter who offers at the pitch forfeits any award and is charged a strike.

A team fields a pitcher and no more than two fielders. Fielders take no fixed positions. Two is a maximum rather than a requirement, and a team of one player fields its pitcher alone.

A batted ball that stops, or is stopped, in front of the mound is an out.

A batted ball caught in the air is an out, whatever distance it would otherwise have carried.

Only one out may be recorded on a batted ball. There are no double plays.

Comment: A ball stopping of its own accord in front of the mound is an out as surely as one a fielder picks up there, so a dribbler nobody reaches is not a hit. The areas and the distances that bound them are in section 2.00.

Comment: In front of the mound and past it are matters of depth, so that line runs straight across the field while the hit lines are arcs. A ball dying near a foul line is judged against the mound, not against its distance from the plate.

A catch counts only if the fielder is standing within the home run line. A fielder may reach or leap beyond it, but may not take a catch while standing in the home run area.

Comment: The catch rule is the one that lets a fielder rob a home run, and stops one being robbed by standing out there. Where the fielder is standing decides it, not where the ball is.

Any other batted ball is scored by where it comes to rest, or by where a fielder stops it. Its distance from the plate determines whether it is a single or a double.

A fielder who stops a batted ball short limits the hit to the area the ball reached.

Comment: A ball struck far enough to land in the double area is a single if a fielder stops it within the single area. Fielding a ball is therefore worth something even where a catch is impossible.

A home run must clear the home run line in the air. A batted ball reaching the home run line along the ground is a triple.

Comment: The wall is the one line that has to be cleared rather than merely reached: a ball that lands short and runs on cannot become a home run, however far it runs. Reaching it along the ground is also the only way to a triple, so a ball cut off short of the line is held to a double.

A batted ball striking the pitcher and remaining in front of the mound is an out. A batted ball striking the pitcher and passing beyond it is scored by the area it reaches.

Runners are ghost runners.

There are no bunts and no steals.

A hit advances each runner by the value of the hit: one base on a single, two on a double, three on a triple. A run is scored as a runner is advanced past home.

A home run scores the batter and every runner.

A walk or a hit by pitch advances only those runners who are forced.

Runners hold on an out. No out advances a runner.

Three outs complete a half inning, and three innings complete a game.

Both sides may agree a different length before the first pitch. Where they do, every rule below referring to the last inning of regulation follows the length agreed.

There is no limit on the number of home runs in an inning.

A half inning also ends once the batting side has scored six runs, without waiting for three outs.

The play on which the limit is reached is completed in full, so a half inning may end on more than six runs. A grand slam struck with the side one run short of the limit scores all four runners.

The limit does not apply in the last inning of regulation, nor in any inning played after it.

The limit ends the half inning only. No lead, however large, ends a game before its last inning.

The home team does not bat in the bottom of the last inning of regulation if it holds the lead, and the game ends at that point.

If the score is level after the last inning of regulation, play continues until a tie is broken in the bottom of an inning.

The game ends the moment the home team takes the lead batting in the bottom of the last inning of regulation, or of any inning after it, without the half being completed.

On a home run every runner scores. On any other play only the run that takes the lead scores, and runners behind it are left where they stand.

Comment: The difference decides a scoreline rather than a result. A side one behind with the bases loaded wins by the same margin whether the batter singles or homers, but the single scores one and the home run scores four.

A game may be stopped before its conclusion by agreement of both sides, or for failing light or any other reason that prevents play continuing.

A game so stopped with one side ahead stands as a win for that side, whatever the inning, and whether or not the other side has batted. A game stopped with the score level is a tie.

Comment: This can only apply before regulation is complete. A side holding the lead once it is complete has already won, and the game ends of its own accord. A tie occurs in roughly one game in a hundred.

A game is umpired by a standing umpire where one is available, and otherwise by any person willing to take it. Where nobody is available, the sides agree each outcome between them.

Comment: Where the sides agree outcomes between them for want of an umpire, every rule on this page still applies. What is missing is somebody to settle a disagreement, not the rules themselves.

The umpire calls balls and strikes.

The batter calls whether a batted ball is fair or foul, and whether they were struck by a pitch.

The fielder nearest a batted ball calls the hit.

Where the sides disagree on any call, the umpire decides, and that decision is final.

Every plate appearance is recorded as exactly one of eight outcomes:

Single · Double · Triple · Home run · Walk · Hit by pitch · Strikeout · Out

Comment: There is no separate flyout, groundout, lineout or popout. A ball caught in the air and a ball held in front of the mound are both recorded as an out. The play-by-play on the live page is built from these eight and no others.

Earned run average is calculated per three innings rather than per nine, and is scaled that way whatever length a particular game runs.

Comment: An earned run average of 3.29 on this site is equivalent to 9.87 calculated the usual way. Every other figure on the stats pages carries its ordinary baseball meaning.

Games are not scheduled, and teams do not play equal numbers of them. First place is determined by a rating that weighs a record by its length, and not by win percentage alone.

A tie counts toward neither a team's record nor its rating.

Comment: A record may therefore add up to fewer games than a team has played. The rating is a matter of how the standings are presented rather than a rule of play, and is set out in full below.