Baseball5 – Baseball Canada
Overview
Baseball Canada partnered with their provincial organizations to test Baseball5, a simplified version of the game baseball with 5 players to a team and without gloves or bats. To put the ball in play, the 'batter' hits a rubber ball with their hand into the playing area. The batter and runners advance from base to base like the regular game of baseball.
Girls are significantly underrepresented in baseball. The pilot project was designed to determine whether Baseball5 could enable boys and girls to participate together and if Baseball5 would be an effective introductory program to children with no baseball experience. The pilot project took place in Montreal and Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, Richmond, British Columbia, Sherwood Park, Alberta and Prospect, Nova Scotia. The target population for the project was children between the ages of six and 14; 150 children participated in the project in total.
Outcomes
Implementation of Baseball5 in schools led to the following learnings:
- Baseball5 is easier to play than regular baseball;
- skills learned playing Baseball5 are transferable to regular baseball;
- meaningful games can be played with smaller groups, and between people with a wide range of sport skills;
- the structure and the rules of Baseball5 makes the game more accessible to participants; and,
- Baseball5 is less expensive and easier to implement for sport leaders.
Quotes
“If you don’t already play baseball it kind of gives you a chance to try it out and try it in a different way than actual baseball whereas you don’t need all the equipment.”
Post-Pilot
- Baseball5 enabled Baseball Canada to pivot from an instruction-based learning program to a play-based learning program.
- In 2023, Baseball5 was launched in 300 schools across Canada. Baseball5 participants in 2023: 28,600. Baseball5 projected participants in 2024: 43,000.
To learn more about this or other pilot projects to improve sport participation in Canada, contact Sport Canada at sportcanadainnovation@pch.gc.ca.