A Fourth Out?

There are four basic "kinds" of outs in Baseball: batters can make strike outs or fly outs, and baserunners can be caught by force outs or tag outs.  And for each of those basic kinds, there are variations.  At the most fundamental level, an out is an out, but if you study baseball scoring you'll discover all the interesting and complicated ways in which different kinds of outs can affect a player's record.

Just Three Outs

There are just three "kinds" of outs in Kardball: batters can make strike outs or "fielded outs" (when the complementary card is played after a pitch is batted), and baserunners can be tagged out (when a matching card is played during a live infield play).

It still takes new Kardball players a game or two to catch on to these rules: complementary card gets a batter out, matching card gets a baserunner out.  At this point, the game seems complete enough. However ... is there a place for another out?

Fielder's Choice Out: A Proposal

Suppose a ten is pitched and a five is batted.  The defense does not have a two, so the five is safe on third base (because the batted card is a three or higher).

Now suppose a Queen is pitched to the next batter, and a three is batted.  If the defense can play a four, they can put the batter out — and if they have a five, they can also tag the runner out, making a double play.

But let's suppose the defense does not have a four to get the batter out, but they do have a five.  The defense plays the five and the base runner is out, but the batter is safe on third base.  It's a lot like the classic fielder's choice.  (Except they didn't really have a choice, because they didn't have a four!)

What We Expect

One question we have is: would this fielder's choice out make it easier or harder for Kardball players to catch on to the infielding part of the game?  We expect rookies to start throwing tag cards down when there is no ball in play, for instance on the first strike pitched to the next batter. 

Picture this: a five card is standing on third; batter up, a Queen is pitched; batter takes a strike; a rookie fielder drops his five card thinking he is putting out the runner.  Sorry, that won't work — either the runner has to attempt to steal (on a five or a ten pitch), or the batter has to bat something to get a ball in play.  Then your tag out is a possibility.

Now you tell us if you think this would make the Kardball defense too strong in a game that already has approximately the right amount of scoreless innings ...

Unikorns Over Mustangs, 7-3

The four-member Enhanced Mustangs (Carrie, Sean, Jeffrey, Mary) proved no match for the four-member Enhanced Unikorns (Will, Hayden, Liz, John) in prime time Kardball action Sunday.

A four-run third inning propelled the Enhanced Unikorns to victory, with help from some strong pitching by Liz and Will, and clutch fielding from Hayden and John.

The Enhanced Mustangs went scoreless in seven innings after a strong two-run first as the sun was just setting over a cloudy night in Elgin.

This marks the first four-against-four Kardball game recorded to date.  Special thanks to Grand Victoria Casino for supplying the cards for tonight's game.

Let Us Into the Kard Game

(sung to the tune of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game")

Let us into the Kard Game
Let us in with the gang
Give us some peanuts and P.B.R.
Nevermind how obnoxious we are!

Let us root, root, root for the Mustangs
Their poor opponents are lame
For it's one, two, three strikes, they're out
At the Kardball game!

Kardball Leagues

Your official source for Kardball League support is now online at Kardball.com.  We have developed three different "blueprints" for Kardball team competition at various levels: Major Leagues, Minor Leagues and Rec Leagues.

Betting on Kardball

The question comes up from time to time: How can we gamble with Kardball?

Our love of playing cards was formed in rural Wisconsin, where we would pass the long dark winter nights playing Rummy, Crazy Eights, Dirty Clubs, Sheepshead, Hearts, 500, Tripoley, or any of several other card games.  We didn't actually gamble, but plenty of other people did.  They still do, of course, and not just on cards. Some of the crazy northwoods stories are true: those farmers, millworkers, hunters and fisherman will bet on almost anything. One of our favorite (true) legends is when they bet on what date a parked car will fall through the ice of a frozen lake and sink in the Spring.

Your New Regular Game

Certain things seem to go good together, and for some of you that's cards and gambling. Add to that America's favorite pastime, America's favorite refreshments, some walkin' around money, and a few of your stupidest buddies and you've got the perfect excuse to spend about three hours in the basement on a Friday night.

While there is no officially sanctioned way to bet on Kardball, we offer the following as a starting point.

Batter Ante Up!

Each at-bat is one complete hand for betting purposes. Players wishing to participate will place an ante before the first pitch. After looking at the batter's cards, player(s) on the offense can start an opening round, betting on a hit before any cards are played. Player(s) on the defense, seeing the Pitcher's cards, can match or raise, betting on an out.

If the pitch results in a hit, the offense collects the pot and the cycle begins again for the next batter.  If the batter makes an out, the defense collects the pot. If the pitch results in a strike, another round of betting ensues before the next pitch. If the batter stays for all three strikes, there will have been three rounds of wagering before the bet is settled on the third pitch. As is customary, a player may withdraw (fold) at some point, but his cards remain in play for Kardball purposes.

Taking the Other Side

While "betting on almost anything" is where we started this discussion, we suggest you not allow the defense to bet on a hit (nor the offense to bet on an out). By doing so, you tempt players to distort their Kardball game play, and that is illegal, unethical, unsportsmanlike and unbecoming of Kardball, which is grounds for being banned from the sport! (Does that seem harsh to you?)

We Value Your Opinion

In our ongoing quest for continuous improvement, we introduce the Kardball Survey, your chance to influence the world's newest card game modeled after baseball.  Simply click the link on the right side near the top.  Your privacy is assured, your opinions are anonymous, and we will not share your responses with anyone (especially if we don't agree with them!)

Errors

Our previous discussion of the use of Kardball umpires led us to the topic of errors.  What's a Kardball error?

Just like in baseball, an error would be a mistake by a fielder which allows a batter to attain more bases than he should have, had the hit been played correctly.  In our friendly games of Kardball, rookie fielders will sometimes play the wrong card.  For example, a seven is pitched, a seven is batted, and the fielder plays another seven (instead of an Ace).  The correct Kardball number combinations can take a little getting used to during a person's very first game.

No Harm, No Foul

In cases like these, we just laugh a little, and remind the fielder that their card was misplayed. They pick it up and we finish the play in a rule-consistent way and then forget about it.  No big deal.  We don't track the error.

This sometimes happens even to an experienced player, too. As a game wears on, the beer runs out, the lights get dim, things get fuzzy. Mistakes are made.  We laugh about it and keep going.  So what?

I'll Tell You What

In any kind of organized Kardball competition (such as a league or tournament), there should certainly be some accounting for errors.  Not that the game isn't friendly — it still is — but it should cost the defense something for playing the wrong card.  In a regulation game, that misplayed seven should probably result in a home run (since a seven was batted against a seven) and the fielder should be charged with an error.  The misplayed seven becomes a discard and the fielder gets a new card. He should also get a wedgie in the locker room after the game.

Then there is the matter of statistics. Number-loving Kardball geeks are fascinated with statistics just as much as any avid sports fans.  The individual stats could easily include an error record along with hitting and pitching results. This provides a dimension of individualized competition as players vie for best averages and career records.

Got an opinion on errors? Now you tell us what ...

Kardball Umpires

If Kardball were a professional sport, with championship titles and prizes at stake, we would probably want some kind of officiating — in other words, umpires.  What would the Kardball umpire do?

Dealing

One solution to the gray area of dealing the cards every half-inning is to have a full-time dealer.  That way it will always be consistent.  In addition, the dealer/umpire would also take charge of dealing out cards to the pitcher after every strike, dealing a replacement card to the defense when they make an out, and dealing three new cards to the next (deck or hole) batter after a hit.

In true Las Vegas fashion, the dealer should also scrape together all the played and discarded cards and make out piles.

Calling Plays

Without an umpire, the defense has to say "safe" or "out" every time a batter hits a pitch, or a runner tries to steal a base, and the batter has to call his own strikes.  It's not a bad system.  A base on balls is obvious to the whole table, too, as long as the pitcher doesn't try to cheat by withdrawing his pitch card without anyone noticing.

But calling these plays would be another good job for the Kardball ump — especially in those cases such as where a rookie fielder plays a two against a batter's two after a six was pitched. He can call this an "error" and rule the batter safe.

Game Board Maintenance

Who doesn't love to watch the umpire sweep sand off home plate? Am I right? Let the Kardball umpire keep the cards in the right spots on the board, and keep the out piles neat.  It will add a bit of sophistication to organized games. Let him push those Jokers out in front of the last batter on each side, while those of us playing the game continue to chew gum, spit, adjust our caps and scratch ourselves.

Kardball Quick Start

Kardball is like Life:  it's fun as long as you don't have to "read and follow all directions."

It's 7:30 p.m., you've just feasted on chicken lo mein, green pepper beef, egg rolls, crab rangoon, shrimp fried rice, and a couple of cold, frosty beverages.  It's been a long day.  Then someone suggests a game of Kardball. You've never heard of Kardball.  Yawn.

Well nothing feels worse in this situation than confronting a long, tricky set of rules to an unfamiliar game.  We know, we've had to learn the rules to Cranium under very similar circumstances.

So we now offer Kardball Quick Start, to help flatten out your learning curve a little.  To borrow a concept from another baseball game played with cards, the Quick Start is kind of like little league Kardball, where a few of the more interesting aspects of the game are omitted to make it easier to learn.

Kardball Store Now Open

Just in time for "Back to School" shopping!  Order your Kardball game boards, Official Score Kards, t-shirts, and ... well, that's all we have right now.

"But isn't Kardball free?  Haven't you, sir, in fact called it a gift to society?"

Indeed, Kardball is still free, as free as the Grace of God, as free as the wind blows, as free as the grass grows.  And for our free subscribers, we also provide our Official Kardball Cut-n-Paste Game Board in PDF format, along with the Official Kardball Rules and Official Kardball Score Kard available for downloading and printing in your home or office.  Just visit the Downloads section of Kardball.com.

When to Bat your Ace

Statistically there is about a 23 percent chance that you, as a batter, will be dealt an Ace.  That's more than once for every five times at bat. We all know the Ace is the most powerful kard, but do we know how to bat with it?

Rookie Mistake

A natural instinct is to hold back the Ace until the third pitch, since you can hit anything with it. Unfortunately, this causes a batter to think too hard about each discard. We have found that when people hesitate too long before discarding, it's often because they are trying to decide whether to bat their Ace, or take another strike. So by holding the Ace, you may be telling the Pitcher what you're hiding. That gives him a huge advantage.

We suggest you try batting an Ace on the first pitch, when it is least expected.

Bat Aces Early

Dare the defense to use their Ace it by batting yours early in the inning.  Start stealing bases immediately.  With an Ace on base, you can steal on any pitch.  Dare the defense to use their Ace. If you try to steal home base on the third pitch with zero or one out, you will either (a.) score a run, or (b.) force the defense to use their lone Ace to stop the run!

Third Grade was a Long Time Ago

We freely admit that the mathematical part of Kardball does not come that easily to some people, even though the ads say something condescending about a "third grade-level math" ability.

Those of us over at Kardball.com happen to be pretty decent at math, so we just never worried about it. More importantly, the game as revealed by the Higher Powers definitely specified multiplication and division, so who are we (mere mortals) to question it ...

Kardball isn't the only card game that uses the numeric values of the cards: Cribbage and Black Jack both rely on math – it just happens to be addition. So maybe those games require a second grade education, I don't know.

Anyways, the next time someone at the Kardball table gives you any grief about batting a five against a Jack, you should just say "Hey, third grade was a long time ago!"

Relief Pitching

This question has come up again and again, ever since Adam and Eve first played Kardball with the beasts of the field, and also with the fowl, and with the creatures that creep upon the Earth: "Can the Pitcher please get some different cards, because these cards STINK!"

Baseball geeks have suggested some kind of relief pitching rule as well, to make it more like real baseball.

We have resisted introducing this kind of rule, because we feel it starts to make the game more complicated (which puts some people off), and it feels kind of arbitrary. Moreover, the rules permit a team to send a different player to the mound for every full inning (and almost every team rotates pitchers like this), which means if one guy is having an "off night," it might ruin an inning, but it doesn't destroy your whole game.

However, to address this issue, we have created a page on Kardball.com that deals with House Rules. You should be able to create a Relief Pitching rule for your own venue if you want to, right?  As long as your house rule does not conflict with an Official Rule, of course. And what might such a rule look like?

One Possibility

Once during a game, and only once, a team may switch pitchers in the middle of their half-inning on defense.  To do this, a Fielder chooses three cards from his own and/or other fielders' hands and takes over as the Pitcher.  The starting Pitcher takes his three cards and becomes a Fielder for the rest of that half-inning.  This seems baseball-like.

Other Possible Wordings

Maybe the Pitcher stays the same, but just swaps out his cards for any three cards from the Fielders' hands.

Maybe the Pitcher just dumps his three cards and draws three new cards from the draw pile. This seems poker-like.

Maybe the Pitcher should dump his cards, take over the hand from a Fielder, and the Fielder draws three new cards to pitch with.  Not bad, but leaves more to chance, and less to strategy.

Oh yeah?  Relieve This!

If you come up with a good relief pitching rule that's fun, fair and easy to enforce, please share. But if you find yourself making constraints on it like ... "rule can only be invoked in the seventh inning or later" ... or "starting pitcher has to pitch to at least three batters before being relieved" ... or "starting pitcher must buy the next beer" ... then you're overthinking it!

Who Made Last Out?

How many times has that question been asked in the last 200 years?  Now we know the answer: the person with a Joker card on the table in front of them.

Technically, Kardball does not use the Jokers in a deck of standard playing cards. However, the use of a Joker to identify which batter retired his side from offense was suggested by John, during a memorable June game in Montello, WI. For some reason, there was only one Joker floating around that night.  (Mustangs vs. Unicorns, 4-4 tie.)

Fast forward to July, and Jennifer makes the brilliant observation that there are two Jokers in the deck, and eureka: two teams in Kardball.

We have made it our house rule to park the Joker in front of the batter making the third out.

Card Game or Board Game?

It is indeed true that we have been playing with a prototype game board that looks something like this. But does that make Kardball a board game?

I intentionally omitted all dependency on any type of game accessories, ensuring that you could enjoy this pastime absolutely for free, except for a single deck of cards.

One player pointed out that since the board isn't strictly necessary – its purpose is really for training more than actual game play.

Let's look to some other games for answers. Can you play checkers without a checker board?  Maybe.  Can you play "Sorry" or "Risk" without a game board?  Certainly not.

Can you play Kardball without the board?  Of course. We've even played it on the top of a trunk full of life preservers inside the natatorium at an Air Force base.  (How many other games can claim that?)

"Board games are kind of passé," Scott said.  True, and so are card games.  No help there.

We leave you with this question:  is Kardball a game?  Or a sport?

Kurrent Events

The day after another exciting game of Kardball on 7-31 in which the Hobos (Scott, Avery, Joy) trampled the Queens (Jennifer, Mary, Jeffrey), the suggestion was made to create a Facebook "like" page for the game.  That's an excellent idea (credit to Jennifer). When it's ready, I will announce it here on the Kardball Klatsch, which is another excellent idea.

More as it develops .....