National Extreme Baseball

Tonight I took the kids to check out National Extreme Baseball . The game pitted the Orlando Dragons against the Daytona Stingrays. For those of you who don’t know (I was one of them until tonight), Extreme baseball is a modified version of the original game.

The Basics

The basic changes are as follows:

1. Both teams are on the field at the same time
2. Two sets of bases exist, the standard called the Weid (pronounced wide) side and a second set called the flip side
3. The flip side bases are run counter-clockwise
4. Pitchers rotate pitches to each batter so only one team is playing at once
5. Once all three outs are recorded on one team, the other completes its half of the inning.

Doesn’t Life up to the Hype

I have to admit I was leary of changing the national pastime. I was right. The thing Extreme Baseball tries to make it so great is its downfall. The game we saw was a ten-inning nail biter won 2-1 by the Dragons. Well, at least it should have been.

First of all, it was very confusing. You never knew where the out was to be made, the players often didn’t know either. Also, you were never really sure what the count was or how many outs their were. Niether did the announcer, who also happened to be the president of the league!

Tied at 1-1 going into the 10th inning it should have been exciting. But it was anticlimactic. There was no real finality to the game. Also, I was never really sure what there was going on at any given time, who was supposed to field the ball, nor where they were supposed to throw it.

Forget the fact that the teams were less than impressive, I expected that going in, but calling this "extreme" is mislabeling it. There is nothing extreme about it. Today’s world of the X-games, which are truly extreme, demands that anything called "extreme baseball" be out there! If the pitchers pitched at the same time, now that would be extreme and probably entertaining as well. A little dangerous I imagine, but definitely entertaining.

Should Have Stayed Home

The bottom line is that I would have rather stayed home and watched the Little League World Series than go to this game. It was a valiant effort, but it comes up short of the hype. Maybe with some polishing it can work, but eliminating the chess game from the thinking man’s game does not make it better, it makes it boring.

Have you seen extreme baseball? What do you think?

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