What is fairball!?

fairball! is the premier baseball and softball solution for pre-game planning and in-game optimization.

Yeah ... but what is does that mean?

fairball! provides tools to help coaches manage games more efficiently. This allows coaches to

• Record who is and is not availble for a given game, and update any fielding lineups to reflect the change.
• Manage fielding lineups to know who is playing which position as each inning as the game goes on
• Optimize the lineup building process with depth charts, favorites, and automations
• Audit playing history during fielding changes to ensure everyone is getting a chance to participate

Why did you build it?

fairball! is the tool I wanted as a coach. I coached youth baseball for over 10 years, both recreational and travel, and in that time, I learned many lessons.

How does fairball! help me as a coach?

fairball! was the tool that I always wanted as a coach. I planned so many games on paper over the years. I would make mistakes trying to distribute playing time fairly, and I wished there was a tool to help ensure that playing time was spread fairly and players weren't planned for multiple positions in the same inning.

What are favorites?

Favorites allow a coach to capture a specific fielding lineup that can be reused at a later time to speed filling of innings for a given game. This allows for common fielding layouts to be captured (e.g. - when the top pitcher is on the mound, when the top reliever takes the mound late in a game, when the best catcher has to step in to keep a game within reach, etc), and reused as needed.

What are depth charts?

Depth charts allow a coach to specify players who are best fit to play a given position in a ranked order - the player in position 1 is the best fit, position 2 is second best, etc. With this functionality, you can assign players to their best fit. In conjunction with the Autofill functionality, this allows for quickly filling a fielding roster once a coach has specified some key positions to fill, or none at all, allowing the depth charts to specify who would be the top choice to fill a position in a given inning.

How does autofill work?

Autofill uses depth chart information to attempt to fill open fielding positions automatically. Autofill will consider who is available, and who is preferred for a given fielding position. If no one from the depth chart is available, the autofill process will select a player at random. Random selection will also be used if a depth chart is not set for a given position.

What is LemonSqueezy??

LemonSqueezy is our payments processor. They handle all of the steps to collect payment information and perform transactions. Once the transaction is complete, they notify us and we set you up to use fairball!. You can find out more about LemonSqueezy at their website.

Why isn't your app in the AppStore?

We thought long and hard about this, and decided not to put the app in the AppStore. There are a number of reasons why:

• Apple would take a fair amount of our revenue, and we don't think we would benefit enough from their advertising to benefit accordingly.
• Staying outside of the AppStore allows us to update our application at any time. This means faster responses to issues, and getting more features to market sooner.
• The overhead of building an app isn't really necessary for fairball!. Web technologies can do everything we need for our app to function well for coaches

How do I install the app if it isn't in the AppStore?

There isn't really an install process for fairball!. It is more like setting a bookmark in a web browser for easy access later.
To install fairball!:

• Navigate to https://app.fairball.club in your phone web browser`
• When the screen renders, select the Share button (looks like a square with an arrow pointing up out of it) at the bottom of the scren
• On the sheet overlay that appears, scroll down to "Add to Home Screen" and select it
• On the next overlay that appears, select "Add" in the upper right hand corner
• At this point, you will have an fairball! entry on your homescreen that looks and works just like an app. Select it to open fairball!

Do you have fairball! swag? When can I get a t-shirt?

Not yet, but we are working on it. If you are a subscriber, you'll be the first to know.