Baseball Coloring Pages

Baseball is a game of small moments: the windup, the crack of the bat, the dust on the slide. These baseball coloring pages catch those moments on the field, and the ones around it, from the backyard game of catch to the empty stadium after the last out.

The positions come first. A young batter swings at home plate, a catcher crouches in his mask with the mitt raised, a pitcher lifts his leg at the top of the windup, an outfielder leaps at the fence, a runner slides into a base in a cloud of dust, and a batter waits at the plate while autumn leaves blow across the field. The whole game is here too: a bat meeting the ball, a home run flying over a wooden fence, the infield gathered at the mound, two pitchers warming up in the bullpen, a pitcher throwing through a downpour, a night game under the tall light towers, and a team stacking their hands in a huddle before running out. After the last out, a player rides on a teammate's shoulders.

Around the field, a coach kneels to tie a small player's shoe, a boy drinks at the fountain by the bleachers, a family shares a tub of popcorn in the stands, an umpire brushes off home plate, a groundskeeper drags the infield, a player chalks the base line, and another stretches in the outfield while the sprinklers arc overhead. The equipment has its own pages: a baseball in the grass with every stitch drawn, a glove and bat against the dugout bench, a rack of wooden bats, a cap on a folded uniform, a pile of bags and helmets by the gate, a pitcher's rosin bag and an old glove on a nail in the garage. At home, a child plays catch with a parent in the backyard, kids play a sandlot game with a cardboard base, and a dog carries a bat across the sandlot. A chibi catcher, a seagull alone on the mound of an empty stadium, a baseball mandala and a pattern of balls, gloves and bats finish the set.

Why a baseball has 108 stitches

A regulation baseball is held together by exactly 108 double stitches of red thread, sewn by hand around a cork and rubber center wrapped in yarn. The stitches are not decoration: they give the pitcher something to grip, and the way the seams spin through the air is what makes a curveball curve. That is why the ball in the grass on one of these pages has every stitch drawn. Coloring them one by one in red is slow, satisfying work, and the ball looks exactly right when it is done.

Where most players start

Most American children meet baseball through T-ball, where the ball sits on a stand and the batter hits it without a pitcher, often from the age of four or five. Then comes coach pitch, then Little League, founded in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, in 1939 and now played in dozens of countries. The Little League World Series is still played there every August. The sandlot page, with its cardboard base and a tree for a foul pole, is the oldest version of all: a few friends, one bat, one ball, and whatever the neighborhood offers for a field.

A few words every young fan hears

• Strike: a pitch the batter swings at and misses, or one in the strike zone that the batter lets go by. Three strikes and the batter is out.
• Ball: a pitch outside the strike zone. Four balls and the batter walks to first base.
• Home run: a hit over the outfield fence, like the one on these pages; the batter runs all four bases.
• Bullpen: where pitchers warm up before coming in to the game.
• Seventh-inning stretch: the pause late in the game when the whole crowd stands up and sings.

Team colors and field colors

• Grass: bright green, with a lighter stripe every few feet where it has been mowed in rows.
• The infield dirt: warm orange-brown, darker around the bases.
• Bases and home plate: white.
• Gloves and bats: tan and brown leather, honey-colored wood.
• Uniforms: pick a real team or invent one. A cap, jersey stripes and socks in the same two colors look like a real team at once.

Quick pages and full stadiums

The simplest pages keep one object or one player large, like the ball in the grass, the home run and the dog with the bat. Quick to color, above the grid, begins with:

• Baseball in the grass
• Home run
• Dog with a bat

The detailed pages are full of fences, bags and bleachers. Lots of detail begins with:

• Equipment bags
• In the bullpen
• Meeting at the mound

Trading cards of your own team

Baseball cards are a tradition as old as the game itself, and these pages make a set. Color several players in the same team colors, cut each one out and glue it onto a small rectangle of card. On the back, write the player's name, position and a made-up statistic or two. A whole team fits in a pocket, and friends can trade players the way children have traded cards for more than a century.

Printing a lineup

Every page is a free PDF drawn on A4 at 300 dpi. A4 prints at full size, and on US Letter "fit to page" shrinks the drawing by about six percent so no bat is cut. The printing guide shows where the setting is. Add to pack gathers a whole lineup into one file. More sports are in the basketball coloring pages, the football coloring pages and the soccer coloring pages, and every sport together in the sports coloring pages.