By Bob Krech

Keep everyone excited, focused on math, and having fun right down to the last day of school with baseball math! Students in grades 6 through 8 will enjoy this unique game, which challenges them to create their own baseball leagues and gives them practice in combinations, schedules, decimals, and percentages as they compete.

The Game
Choose two volunteers to demonstrate a simple baseball game for the class. Give each a die and four place markers (e.g. cubes, chips, coins). Provide a game board-a piece of unlined white paper with a baseball diamond drawn on it. Then guide students:

1. Roll the dice to decide who will bat first. That player puts his or her place markers behind home plate.

Dice Roll/Results

7/Single

2/Home Run

8/Strike

3/Pop Out

9/Strikeout

4/Single

10/Foul Ball

5/Ground Out

11/Double

6/Pop Out

12/Strike

2. Each player then rolls a die, or makes the pitch. The numbers on the dice are added together; match the sum to the batting table above for the result. A sum of seven, for example, is a single.

3. The player at bat moves the first marker according to the batting table. Play continues as in a regular baseball game for three innings. The player with the most runs wins.

Distribute dice, boards, and markers to kids and have them try their own practice games.

The League
After the practice game, tell students they will be forming their own baseball leagues. Split the class into two groups, the American League and the National League. Within the two groups, have kids partner to become managers of their baseball team. Each pair chooses a team name.

Provide time for each league to meet and create a schedule. First, tell students the days available for play; for instance, the last 10 days of school are a good stretch with which to work. The schedule should have each team playing every other team in its league at least twice. Meet as a class to review the two league schedules. Have both leagues model their mathematical scheduling strategies on the board through diagrams or charts, demonstrating how they accounted for all possibilities. Display the schedules and distribute copies to the class.

The Standings
Begin play according to the schedules. Games typically take about 10 minutes and can be played toward the end of a class period, after students have finished their other assignments. Have players record the final scores after each game, then arrange for partner teams to take turns collecting and analyzing the results. They should report back with the overall win/loss record, winning percentage in decimal form, and ranking for each team. (See sample, below.)

You may want to preface this task with a mini-lesson on using division to find percentages, either as a paper-and-pencil exercise or with a calculator. This is a great opportunity to see clearly the relationship between fractions and decimals, as well as their usefulness. Check and post each report.

Continue to play through the schedules set up by the leagues. If you have time, schedule playoffs and a World Series between the National League winner and the American League winner. You'll find that kids may not want school or at least the leagues to end this year!

Bob Krech, an Instructor teacher-adviser, has been an elementary-school teacher for 20 years. This article was originally published in the May/June 2000 issue.