THIS is baseball?

We signed Luke up for summer baseball. His spring coach, Troy, told us he was coaching a "coach pitch" team during summer. During the spring, Luke played "player pitch" with most of regular baseball rules. But, we love Troy, so we followed him to this team.

Tonight was the first game. Our first indication that something might be "off" was that Luke had to put away his "real" baseball. They don't use real balls in this league. They are rubber balls. Luke gets warmed up and the game starts.

Luke's team starts in the outfield. Luke is playing first base. One of the first plays is of the other team hitting, one of Luke's teamates catching it and throwing it to Luke. Luke runs up to the player who isn't quite and home and tags her. Hurray for Luke!! But, she just stays there on base. I was like, "Hello, Luke tagged her out. She is out. Luke got her. What is going on?" Chris calmly tells me there are NO OUTS in this league. Crap, what did I sign my baseball player up for??

Here are a few more of the rules:
1. Each batter gets 5 chances to hit the balls from the coach pitching. (5? really?)
2. If they can't hit off the coach a T is pulled out. (Luke had nightmares about the T being pulled out for him!)
3. Everyone on the team hits in each inning. (Right, no outs)
4. NO stealing bases. (What? I mean really? Why steal in baseball? Stealing is GOOD in baseball)
5. You don't have to slide into home. (We told Luke if he did NOT slide into home, he was grounded for a week.)

I am not sure what kind of baseball this is!! Hopefully Luke will stay baseball ready and not loose any of his actually baseball skills!!