PARTICIPATION IN SCORING ASPECT IS STRICTLY OPTIONAL SO FEEL FREE TO FIND THE CACHE AND WATCH ALL THE ACTION FROM THE GRANDSTAND. GAME ON!
Welcome to the 2023 Home Run Derby! Every Saturday morning a new cache will be released. After it is published you will have roughly a week to find it and select a slugger to represent you in that week's edition of the home run derby. Select one player and include his name in your log. The number of home runs he hits the following week (starting the Friday after cache publication) is your score; don't worry, we will handle all the scoring.
The series will be cumulative points from April through September with a week off over the All Star break. The "catch" is every player must be unique, so FTF has choice of any player, second to find will have second pick and so on. The cache hiders will also be playing so the cache owner will select fifth each week. A new wrinkle in this year’s scoring system is participants are only allowed to a pick a player once during the season. In all subsequent weeks your pick must be different than any other player you had used in previous weeks.
This is week 18 of the series (18 of 25). All scoring will take place Friday, August 4th through Thursday, August 10th
The geocaching Home Run Derby has seen many formats over the years. Here is its chronological history:
2010-Doug introduced the inspiration for the series where each of the first four finders received a number of bases: FTF was four, STF-3, etc. This original format was used in 2011 as well. I recall some fierce battles for bases!
2012-a very similar format to today's derby. I hid a cache every week for a full season and you earned points every time your selected slugger knocked one out of the park. This hide is in the same general area as the first hide in 2012.
2013-Nine Innings To Winning, similar to the 2012 version except I came to my senses and reduced it to nine weeks.
2014-the only year since 2010 with no derby.
2015-the series resumed with multiple hiders for the first time.
2016-Fantasy Geoball-you selected a player at a different position each week and scored based upon his total bases during the season. Fun but a bit too complicated.
2017-present-the current version of the derby, with a change in 2023 commonly referred to as the "Mike Trout Rule," where each particpant can only choose each player once (although Trout has missed a ton of games the past three seasons -just sayin' :).
The cache is a short walk from parking. Please be careful and watch for snakes. Good luck!