2024/2025 GMS Gladiator Baseball


Format: GMS Gladiator Baseball is a competitive program designed to prepare middle school players for high school baseball. The teams will participate in the Knox Metro Middle School Baseball League (KMMSB) and are generally made up of players that will attend GMS. Knox County Schools does not sanction MS Baseball, so the teams are organized by Fountain City Recreation Commission in cooperation with CHS Baseball.

        Varsity – This is considered the top division and can be made of of 6^th-8^th graders. Players in the Varsity division should be the most talented and are willing to put in extra work to be prepared for High School baseball. Games will be played on a 60/90 field.
Junior Varsity - The JV-Majors division, will be comprised of the most competitive 6^th & 7^th graders while the JV-Minors division will be mostly 6^th graders, but some less competitive 7^th graders are allowed. Both JV Divisions will play on a 54/80 field.

Allowed Players:
This league is open to players who are in 6^th-8^th grade. Some 5^th Graders may be allowed to tryout by invitation only and their evaluation scores will be used to determine if they are ready to play.

Schedule:
The full season schedule will be provided KMMSB at the beginning of the game season.
Practice days/times will be determined by the coach.
Varsity: Practices start early September and games will be played February – April.  Games will be played Monday-Saturday
Junior Varsity: Practices start early September and games will be played February – April.  Games will be played Monday-Friday with some makeup games on Saturday.
*All players must be able to play on these days and are expected to attend all practices.
*The season occurs late winter/early spring, so weather can have a big impact on the schedule. Opponents and locations may change based on field availability and scheduling conflicts

General Calendar:
Evaluations are held on 8/25/2024 at Fountain City Ballpark
                          6^th grade @1pm, 7^th grade @2pm, 8^th grade @3pm
                          There are no make-up or alternate evaluations
Team Formation will take place the week of 8/26/2024
Players notified week of 9/2/2024
Parent Meeting will be held on [Date]
Practices – September thru February
Games – February thru Mid-April

Team Formation:
Teams will be formed by the coaches and the FCRC Baseball Committee. The coaches and committee will evaluate the talent level and number of players, then determine the number of teams in each division that will be fielded. Note: There may not be exactly 1 team in each division, but the program is limited to a max of 3 teams.

Evaluations:
All players should participate in Evaluations. Players will transition through a series of stations where their performance will be scored based on a standard rubric. Evaluators will be made up of baseball fluent individuals who are not coaches and do not have kids in the program. Parents are not allowed to observe during evaluations and will be expected to drop-off players.

Fees & Expenses:

The registration fee covers insurance, coaches pullovers, practice/game/hitting facility baseballs, scorebooks, lineup cards, field maintenance and league fees.
Players will be responsible for purchasing their uniform directly from Tennessee Sporting Goods as well as providing any other game equipment they may need. Equipment must meet any and all requirements specified in the KMMSB league rules.
*There may be additional fees during the season that players will be responsible for.

General Rules and Deviations:
The program generally follows NFHS rules with some deviations. KMMSB will provide detailed rules prior to the season.