How to Play MojoKickball

A light gray texture similar to the bumps on a kickball.

Inclusion with Contribution

Welcome to MojoKickball, the game that celebrates inclusion with contribution. There are a wide variety of roles that value strategy over athletic ability, so no matter your skill level, there will always be something you can do to help your team. If you’re looking for a fun way to stay active, this is the game for you!

MojoKickball. COME. PLAY. EVERYONE.

Overview

The game is divided into four quarters, eight minutes each. Teams will be either kicking or fielding for the entire quarter, then switch roles every other quarter. There are unlimited strikes, outs, and fouls, but don’t let that slow you down—the clock is ticking! At the end of the game, the team with the most points wins!

Setup

Mojo is played on a softball or baseball diamond. There are four bases: home, first, second, and third. There’s a pitcher’s mound, an outfield, and foul lines to keep the game on the field. You’ll need someone to keep time, and someone to keep score—it’s okay if that’s the same person. To prevent collisions, runners will score at third base. You’ll need a bunt line between the pitcher’s mound and the three outer bases. You’ll also need a cone, three sashes, six kickballs, something to keep the balls from rolling away, and a mayhem horn—more on that later.

An animated image of a MojoKickball field.

Basic Play

The pitcher rolls a ball, a kicker kicks the ball, and the fielders try to catch the ball. If the ball lands outside the foul lines, the kicker tries again. If a fielder catches the ball, the kicker is out! If the fielder doesn’t catch the ball, the kicker runs until they’re either…

Safe on a base,
They’ve scored a point at third,
Or the fielding team tags them out.

The Pitcher

In Mojo, the pitcher is on the kicking team. So when a fielder gets their hands on a ball, they’re going to keep it! The pitcher has six balls to work with, but if they roll all of them right away, the fielders will have all the balls, and none of the runners will be able to score.

Pitchers need to stay inside the bunt line, so they’ll need creative strategies to keep all the balls in play…

Kickers and Runners

Once the ball is kicked past the bunt line, kickers can run and steal as many bases as possible until they score at third base, or they get out. Every base is safe—including home base—so no fielder can tag a runner when they’re on a base. But if the runner waits too long, time will run out! Keep moving!

The good news is that when a fielder throws the ball, the runner can catch it and use it to deflect other balls. The bad news is sometimes you can’t avoid getting out.

Fielders

Once a ball has been kicked, it becomes a “live ball”—any fielder can catch it or pick it up. But once it’s touched, it cannot hit the ground again, or it will become a “dead ball.”

Fielders cannot use dead balls, so they’ll have to carefully pass to each other like a game of hot potato. Their goal: to keep as many live balls in play as possible, preventing the pitcher from pitching, and the runners from running. But watch out for the chasers!

Chasers

When a kicker is out, they get in line to become a chaser. The chaser wears a sash, and has three objectives: protect the runners, tag the fielders, and get the balls back to the pitcher. When a chaser tags a fielder with a ball, the ball becomes a dead ball, and the chaser can send it back to the pitcher. But if the chaser gets too far away, the runners will be unprotected. Successful chasers are always moving, and always aware of their surroundings.

There are three kinds of chasers: the pitcher, who stays inside the bunt line; the outer chaser, who stays outside the baseline; and the main chaser, who can go anywhere on the field. While the main chaser and pitcher can stay in play for as long as they like, the outer chaser must be dismissed after affecting 2 balls.

When the chasers are dismissed, or when they dismiss themselves, they give their chaser sash to the next person in line, and return to the kicking line. If the chaser line is too long, there won’t be any kickers, so chasers have the option to pass their sash directly to the last person in the line, sending everyone else back to kick.

Mayhem

When the kicking team is struggling to score or running out of balls, calling mayhem is a great way to reset the game. Any kicking team player can blow the mayhem horn, which stops the game clock for 60 seconds. Everyone on the kicking team — EVERYONE — becomes a chaser. MojoKickball suddenly becomes a game of keepaway tag, as the kicking team tries to retrieve the live balls from the fielding team.

At the end of the 60-second period, any fielder who did not get tagged can keep their ball. All kicking team players return to the kick line, except the pitcher and the main chaser. Each team gets one free mayhem per game — any other mayhems will cost you 60 seconds of game time, and you will not be able to score.

Summary

If you think this game sounds chaotic, it is! But that’s why we play. For more information, visit MojoKickball dot com; or support field rental and equipment upkeep at MojoKickball dot com slash donate.