"Over the Line" a Great Game

Jan. 1, 2009

By Del Drake

Softball News Report

STAR, Ida. - Several years ago, I thought it would be a good idea to start a weekday morning softball league in Boise, ID to complement our regular Monday night senior league.

After several mornings of only eight to 10 players showing up, allowing us just to have batting practice, I remembered a game we used to play as kids in Anaheim. No one that showed up had ever heard of Over the Line since it was a Southern California game and I now lived in Idaho.

I have heard two stories of how the game was invented. One was that in the early 1950s USC developed it for their intramural sports program. The other was the Old Mission Beach Athletic Club in San Diego invented it to play in the sand. They have an annual tournament in July that draws as many as 50,000 spectators.

The beauty of the game is that it can be played by as few as two players on a team, which is the way I learned to play in 1954, one infielder and one outfielder. The game we play is greatly modified from the official rules.

There is no base running, the field is usually divided in half by running a line through the pitchers mound to the outfield. We have found that by using a little league field with a 200-foot fence, and using wooden bats, makes it a great game.

The field can be modified in any way to suit your preferences. The team at bat uses its own pitcher who can pitch from any place in the infield. We only allow three pitches to speed up the game.

The defensive infielders must stay on the dirt, if the infielder goes into either the infield or outfield grass the batter gets a hit. By using a fence, a ball that rolls to the fence is a double, if it hits the fence on the fly, it’s a triple and of course one that goes over the fence is a home run. All runners must be forced from base to base.

That is how we play the game and, as you can see, it is easily adaptable to different rules that suit you. It is a great game for a lot of batting practice and learning to place hit. Anyone with any questions can contact me at 208-286-9123 or (e-mail) joyceadrake@hotmail.com.