“Baseball” Is The Most Competitive Drinking Game You Never Knew You Needed

PortlandPledgeHazers7 years ago

Baseball and beer are two things that truly compliment one another more than most other pairings on earth. However, whether it’s the offseason, you smashed your TV after a Fortnite loss and can’t watch the game, or you simply want to get both excessively drunk and competitive, then baseball’s drinking counterpart is the game of choice.

I recall first touring the chapter house in which I now reside and being confused as hell as to why there was a massive baseball scoreboard in the party room. Baseball now, as promised by the active chapter while I was a pledge, has turned into my drinking game of choice — I like to consider myself to be the in-house commissioner of baseball’s drunk uncle. Unless you have never heard of the sport of baseball in your entire life, then this game will be remarkably easy for you to pickup.

The Rules:

Although a scoreboard is not totally necessary, it is heavily encouraged as it gets extremely difficult to recall runs and outs come late innings. Pick a team name (house favorites include “Mexican Tap Water” and “The Challenger Launch”) and have captains rock-paper-scissors to see who bats first.

From here, it’s essentially standard baseball rules. Your team of three to four players picks a batting order and the game commences. Each team has four cups in a straight line on their end of the table with the cup closest to the other team as first base and the closest to your team as home plate. Each lineup of four bases has one beer split among them. When a ball lands in one of your bases, you drink the cup and any cups ahead of the base (if a triple gets hit, you drink the first three cups). Whether a shot lands in home plate or a runner advances home, you finish the entire rack of cups.

As for strikes and outs, it’s very simple. If a batter completely misses a cup on his throw, it’s an out. If a ball hits a cup and doesn’t go in, that’s a strike, but if a strike is caught before it hits the table or ground, that’s an out.

Where the game gets interesting is on steals. Your team can steal as long as any runners are on base and the opponents’ cups are already full of beer. To steal, you simply pick up the next cup in order of the bases and chug it then flip it meanwhile the team on defense races you to do the same. If you flip first you’re safe, but if the defense does it’s an out. Not only does stealing allow for rapid beer consumption for both teams, but it also is the easiest way to bring runners home.

Lastly, an unofficial yet widely popular rule comes into play during the seventh inning stretch, in which teams gather for a Christmas Day Truce type event and put aside their differences for a round of Thunderstruck. Though reading the rules may seem like one would not drink too much during a game, it is imperative that you gather enough beer to sustain a full nine inning game before the game starts. Depending on how good your teammates are, a full 30-rack could disappear in just three innings. Baseball is the perfect mix of skill and aggressive competition, which always makes for an entertaining day of drinking cheap domestics with your pledge brothers..