The GRBL is considered Baseball's Ultimate Second Chance
In January of 2015, Tony Lewis knew that he wanted to keep extending the lives of baseball players who had the game taken from them too early. The option of only playing softball as a competitive outlet didn’t quite sit well after these ballplayers had spent years of their life training and playing the game they loved only for it to suddenly stop. After a year of brainstorming about how to pull off how the GRBL would work, we released our first commercial that received over 60,000 views.Our Story
To put it famously, “and away we went”. Our league made sure to keep the integrity of the game intact and also incorporate some of our own original ideas to make for a good product on the field. We like to pride ourselves on being the most professionally 9 inning wood bat adult baseball league in the country. After we knew that the baseball product on the field was good, we started doing things to interact with our fans. We hosted rock concerts, created a free livestream radio show, a podcast was formed, and we have given thousands of dollars to local not for profit groups along the way.
We are proud to say that for over the past decade we have had the following statistics to highlight:
250+ wood bat baseball games played
800+ players forming GRBL rosters
3000+ spectator league attendance year after year
Countless memories created for our players and our fans
The site of the league was to be an recently rehabilitated 5,000 seat independent ballpark in Ozark, Missouri formerly known as Pricecutter Park that was the home an old indy ballclub named the Ozark Mountain Ducks back in 2002. Tony had convinced the new owners of his idea to house his “town ball” adult wood bat baseball league. They said as long as the league could pay rent, the league could get the keys. So in the late summer of 2016, a tryout date was announced and the pioneers of the GRBL stepped onto the field. Approximately 100 participants showed up to tryout to be a part of something special. At the conclusion of tryouts, 60 players were kept to form four teams. Those teams’ names were simply the colors of old hand me down jersey’s that Tony could get his hands on. They were simply Red, Blue, Green, and Black. Thus, the “Original 60” were born.
Every single year, we strive to enhance some aspect of the league. Not only for our players but also our southwest Missouri community. Our “Town Ball Era” was ushered in Season V of the GRBL to give our local communities a team to root for. We created the following teams where their names have specific meanings regarding the townships they represent:
The Ozark Mountain Ducks
The Nixa Suckers
The Moon City Mavericks
The Springfield Metropolitans
The Branson Showmen
The Republic Locos