1A MACHINE PITCH
AGES 5-7 (born September 1, 2016 - August 31, 2019)
**The final division placement of players may be decided by the league. This is based on the skill level of the player and takes into account safety and balanced competition.
1A Machine Pitch is the next developmental co-ed level following Tee Ball. This division is for younger players with less experience, ages 5-7
Our 1A Machine Pitch program provides volunteer coaches with everything they need to create an environment where players will learn the skills of the game, while having fun and staying active.
At this next developmental level things are taken lightly, but more serious than Tee Ball.
We realize at this age children may still have a different desire to play from time to time. Hence there is no requirement as to how many games or practices a child must attend in this division. Additionally, there is no set requirement as to a how long a child must participate.
That said, different from in Tee Ball, a focus of this division is to teach children about sportsmanship, respect, commitment and being a team player. Thus, there are many instances at this level that are valuable opportunities to reinforce these lessons. In many cases it comes in the form of a child still playing when they didn't want to, showing up for their team, arriving early and finishing a game.
That said, in this division we stress to our coaches the importance of teaching the values of Little League while staying flexible and allowing parents and guardians to figure out what's the right balance for their child.
This division introduces children to hitting pitched balls, making plays for outs and scoring runs.
The diamond used has a 60-foot basepath and pitching distance of 40 feet.
Games in this division are officiated by trained umpires.
Players will be pitched special machine pitch balls from what is considered the very best, safest and most accurate strike throwing machine used by any little league in WNY.
The roster size for a 1A Machine Pitch team is 6-10 players, with a season of roughly 8-10 games.
A typical week for a player in this division consists of (2) 90-120-minute games, with 1 game played on a weekday and 1 weekend game (most likely a Saturday).