Kickball

Kickball is a game that was invented in the United States of America in the early half of the twentieth century. It was a game to introduce school children to baseball in US public schools that originally popularized it as a sport.

Kickball is known as “soccer baseball” in most of Canada and “football rounders” in the United Kingdom). In South Korea, kickball is known as balyagu [발야구 (foot-baseball). In Japan, it is called キックベース(Kickbase). A related sport, “kickingball,” is popular among Venezuelan refugees in Argentina.

Kickball is a team sport and league game, similar to baseball. Like baseball, it is a safe haven game in which one team tries to score by having its players return a ball from home base to the field and then circle the bases. Meanwhile, the other team tries to stop them by tagging them “out” with the ball before they can return to home base. However, instead of hitting a small, hard ball with a bat, players kick an inflated rubber ball; this makes it more accessible to young children. As in baseball, teams alternate half-innings. The team with the most runs after a predefined number of innings wins.

Kickball is a great sport to advance with youth who enjoy soccer/football and want to learn more about baseball as well.

The Playing Field

Kickball is typically played on a softball diamond with an 8.5 inch to 16 inch diameter inflated rubber ball, such as a utility ball. As in baseball/softball, the game uses three bases, a pitcher’s mound, and a home plate. Sometimes in less formal games, the field is not bounded by a fence (which traditionally surrounds a softball or baseball diamond), but is instead open. This may result in informal rule changes to accommodate the field, such as home runs being counted by number of bounces instead of by distance.

Kickball can also be played on a rectangular blacktop area with chalk or paint outlines, such as an open outdoor basketball court.