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Over-the-line is a game related to baseball and softball. Like those games, you have the batter, pitcher, and fielders. Because a game requires only three people per team, it's considerably easier to get a good informal game going. Gameplay, however, is very different.
An over-the-line court is made up of a rope triangle staked out on sand. The base of the triangle is 55 feet long, and the distance from the base to the opposite point (which is the location of home) is also 55 feet. Two parallel ropes extend out from either corner of the triangle ajacent to the base and at right angles to it. The base of the triangle is called "The Line". The open-ended rectangle between the parallel ropes and behind The Line is fair territory, which extends to infinity.
Unlike in softball, the batter and pitcher are on the same team. The batter stands at home. The pitcher stands anywhere in front of The Line. Fielders (the other team) stand behind The Line, in fair territory.
A hit is made when the ball is knocked over the line into fair territory and hits the ground without being caught. A hit may also be made when the fielder who catches the ball crosses over the line or out of fair territory or drops the ball. Three hits in one inning scores one run. No bases are physically run, however. A fly ball hit past (not necessarily over his head, just past) the last player in fair territory without him touching it counts as a "home run". This will score at least one run plus however many hits have been made. The hit count is then set back to zero.
Annual Tournament
Over-the-line was invented on the beaches of San Diego, and continues to thrive in the area. It is seen largely as a novelty game in the inland counties (and, debatably, the beach counties as well), but still persists as a physical education activity at local high schools, and most visibly in the practice of an annual tournament held on Fiesta Island. By far the locale's most notorious activity, the annual "OMBAC OTL Tournament" is a prominent staple in San Diego's party sub-culture. The tournament has a knack for producing adult themes and motifs; team names, often variations of the sport's equipment-namely bats and balls-are seen as explicit enough to discourage any youth attendance. Combined with copious amounts of alcohol, the tournament has gained a negative reputation for its hedonistic and sexual overtones. Perhaps in an effort to legitimize the sport, the OMBAC has made strides to cut back on these and some of the tournament's other, more offensive, elements. It seeks to define a purpose for the tournament beyond "beer, babes, and bats on the beach."
The tournament has gained a negative stigma above and beyound the debauchery it seems to champion: as the population that began the event continues to age (the tournament began in 1953), it garners increasingly severe critiques from both spectators angered at the adult elements, and those younger tournament goers who find the older participants increasingly out of place. Despite this, the OMBAC expects 52,000 people to attend the event in 2006 over the two July weekends it is held.
External links
"Over-the-line"