RallyBird Baseball

RallyBird Baseball (also known as RallyByrd Baseball) is a 1-hour board game that Peter Gelman designed to emphasize quick turns, easy of play, yet meaningful baseball decisions for both offense and defense.

Here's the general idea of play: Offense chooses a tactic from the set of At Bat cards and places it face down. Then Defense arranged the 6 Glove tiles in their zones on the board. Offense reveals the card, showing the tactic and what zone or zones it tests. Offense rolls 2 six-sided dice and compares the sum of the dice to the sum of the relevant Glove zones. The dice result is either less than, equal to, or more than the sum of the Glove zones. The players apply the At Bat card's result to the batter and base runners.

The game board is 18-inches square. The tiles, made of laser-cut pressboard, are 2-inches square. These tiles include Defense's Glove tiles, Inning tiles to keep time, and Run tiles for keeping score. The 17 At Bat cards are poker sized. There are 4 red and 4 blue large wooden meeple tokens, and 2 yellow Out tokens as well.

The Rally Bird itself, also a tile, is a popular and recommended optional rule that gives the 9th inning underdog an extra chance... extra chances continue if the underdog succeeds, as long as they succeed. In baseball terms, it's a rally. If Home follows Visitor as a 9th inning underdog, both sides will have the opportunity to find inspiration in the birds who visit the field.

—description from the designer