How a 10-team league runs a season on Dugout Hero

The setup

League

10 teams, one Thursday-night adult coed division

Format

9-week regular season, single-elimination playoff weekend

Rule set

GSL, including the Designated Homerun Hitter

Fields

Two diamonds, two games per slot, 7 innings or 55 minutes

Scorekeeping before

Paper scorecards, texted photos, a shared spreadsheet

The season, step by step

1. Preseason

   Lock the rule set once, not ten times

   The organizer sets GSL as the league default: home run limit, the excess-home-run inning-ending out, courtesy runner allowance, and the DHH rule. Every coach who joins inherits it, so the rule that decides a game is identical on both diamonds. Nobody scores a walk-off differently because they learned the rules at a different park.

   This is the step that removes the most arguments later. When the app owns the home run count, the excess-HR out is a notification, not a debate at the plate.

2. Week 0

   Coaches onboard in a dugout, not at a desk

   Each coach creates an account, adds a roster with jersey numbers and defensive positions, and runs the built-in sample game to practice tapping through an inning. The onboarding wizard walks them from roster to first scheduled game in a few minutes on a phone.

   Coaches who complete a sample inning before opening night score their first real game without stopping play to figure out the interface.

3. Week 1

   Opening night: two games live at once

   Both scorers work from their phones. Each game gets a share link the organizer drops in the league group chat, so players on the later slot — and anyone stuck at work — follow the live box score inning by inning instead of waiting on a text.

   The live view is read-only. Fans can watch every plate appearance; only the coach scoring the game can change anything.

4. Weeks 2–4

   The rules the app enforces for you

   Courtesy runner usage is tracked per player, so a second illegal use is flagged as an out rather than discovered in an argument. Under GSL, the DHH's home runs sit outside the team total, and a walk to the DHH banks one free home run until that batter comes up again — the scorer just records the walk and the counter handles itself.

   Mercy and time limits are checked as the score updates, so games end when the rule says they end.

5. Midseason

   Stats that already exist when someone asks

   Because scoring is event-based, hitting, defense, and pitching lines accumulate as games are played. The organizer sorts and searches league leaders instead of collecting scorecards, and exports a PDF box score for any game or a season summary for any date range in one tap.

   Year-over-year totals are kept per player, so returning players carry a history rather than restarting at zero each spring.

6. Every week

   Recaps the league can actually post

   After a game, one tap produces a share-ready recap graphic with the final score, standout lines, and the rule moments that decided it — the excess-home-run out, the courtesy runner call, the mercy trigger. The league posts it the same night while people still care.

   Each recap carries the league's game link, which is how most new players first see the live view.

7. Playoffs

   Seeding from the same source of truth

   Standings and run differential come from the games as scored, so the bracket is built from the scorebook rather than a reconciled spreadsheet. Playoff weekend runs back-to-back games on the same rule set with the same scorers.

   A tournament can be set up standalone the same way, with pool play and bracket games rolled up as one event.

What changes for the organizer