While many children thrive in a structured baseball environment like Spring Season and Fall Ball, there are even more life lessons that can be learned through working with your peers to solve problems, establish leadership skills, and come together to have fun. This is the core philosophy of Little League's Sandlot Fun Days program. Think The Sandlot movie, where neighborhood kids get together on an empty field and "just play ball" simply to have fun. 

Lake Forest LL will reserve and pay for the field and will administer the signup process to help get groups of kids together. While we would like the majority of Sandlot participants to be LFLL players, kids do not have to be a current LFLL player to participate - so invite that friend who has never played baseball before or friend/family visiting from out of town to come join a game! 

Parents should be responsible for ensuring that any league equipment used are properly returned to the equipment bin after the kids are done. We also need at least one Little League background checked volunteer at the game site to oversee the activities and make sure the players are safe. Parents DON'T need to coach, pitch or umpire (unless the KIDS ask you to)!

Players (kids) make the rules, make the lineups, coach each other and make the calls. Be inclusive of everyone. Have fun!

The only "rules" we ask that be followed are for safety reasons:

• Batters must wear helmets (borrow one from a friend if you don't have one or forget to bring one)
• Catchers must wear catcher's gear. No one has catchers gear? No problem - just use a net or let the balls gather by the backstop until you run out of balls (bring a big bucket of balls if that's the case!)
• Rotate pitchers so that pitch count rules as outlined in the Little League Rulebook are followed - this is to protect kids from injury to their throwing arm.
• No "on deck" batters and the only player holding a bat is the player in the batter's box.
  

Tee Ball/Coach Pitch - If your child is young, inexperienced/new to baseball and would be most comfortable hitting off a tee and/or hitting a ball tossed to them by an adult volunteer. Recommended for ages 5-7, for those who have never played before or have played 1-2 seasons of Tee Balll/Rookie and not yet ready for kid pitch. Reduced impact tee balls will be used. Due to a lack of interest, the Tee Ball/Coach Pitch Sandlot program has been canceled for the Summer 2022 season.  Please check back in November/December for the Winter 2022 season. 

Beginner Kid Pitch - If your child is still a beginner in the sport, but beyond the tee and would be comfortable having another player pitch the ball to them. An adult may step in to pitch if kids are unable/unwilling to pitch. Recommended for ages 7-10, for those who are ready for or have played 1-2 seasons of Single A or are on the older side but have never played baseball before and would be more comfortable playing with younger kids. Reduced impact tee balls will be used.

Experienced Players - If your child has moderate experience in playing baseball. Recommended for ages 8-12, for those who are ready for or have played AA/AAA. Regular baseballs will be used. 

Advanced Players - If your child is experienced playing baseball and just wants to get together with a group of similarly aged/skilled kids in the community to play ball. Recommended for ages 11-14, for those who are ready for or have played Majors/Intermediate. Regular baseballs will be used. 

We are limiting signups to a maximum of 20 kids per game so no one has to "sit the bench" and everyone gets ample opportunities to bat and field. Feel free to sign up for one or more of the days/times - depending on the popularity of the program signups, we will add more dates as fields are available through the city of LF. Summer 2022 was our first season running this program, and the feedback was very positive. We will plan to have additional sandlots in Winter 2022 - check back in November/December for dates and more info!