Quick Facts

• New York’s only dedicated dodgeball league

• The only continuously running rubber dodgeball league in the Northeast

• Coed - with the best gender balance of any contact sport in the city

• Players have won regional tournaments, National Dodgeball League tournaments, and represented us on the gold medal winning Team USA at the World Dodgeball Federation championships.

• One of the fastest growing sports in the country

• Sandlot plays 4 nights a week all over New York City

• Open to all. Currently we have everyone from 21 year old college kids to 41 year olds with kids of their own. The most ethnically and socially diverse group you are likely to find in the city. A true microcosm of New York.

• Founded in 2012 by Ari Goldberg

• Offers league play, open gym pickup games, private and corporate events

High resolution photos for download

Long facts

Wherein you should care about dodgeball:

Dodgeball’s about to get big in this country.  Not just a throwback playground nostalgia game, but as a sport.  No, for realsies.  Every year more and more organization is taking place between cities.  There are not only regional tournaments going on all the time, but also National Dodgeball League tournaments, and even World Dodgeball Federation championships involving teams from across the globe.  And every year, teams get more sponsors, tournaments get more coverage, leagues grow larger.  I think there’s room for a 5th national major sport don’t you?  Watch your back NHL...

Wherein you should care about Sandlot Sports:

Remember all those tournaments we were talking about?  Our NYC teams have been winning the regional tournaments, players from our teams have won the National Dodgeball championship, and we have players in our league who have not only represented Team USA on the international scale at the World Dodgeball championships, but yes, have won that as well.  And as dodgeball grows in popularity, we are positioned as THE league in THE city.  Many cities have some foam nerf dodgeball groups where the best will get together to play with real rubber balls for tournaments...but we are the only ones in the Northeast running a successful rubber dodgeball league.  We play every week all across the city.  We’re open to everyone.  And we are growing.  Game on.

Wherein dodgeball isn’t the game you remember as a kid (but a sport of kings!):

Some people think dodgeball is a bullying game. But that’s probably more just that everyone last played it when we were 12...and, you know, 12 year olds kind of bully each other.  So we had this crazy idea that, I don’t know, maybe we’re more mature than 12 year olds now? Not much, maybe, but at least where it counts...

We think dodgeball is a great game. There are plenty of social sports companies everywhere with basketball, flag football, softball, kickball...but when you boil those sports down, they’re really just throwing, and catching and running anyway aren’t they?  And that’s dodgeball’s unique simple appeal.  Strip down the rules of ball sports and you get to this: dodgeball’s caveman core satisfaction of  “Grunt, I hit you with thing!” (BUT NOT IN THE FACE!) And we love it.

Wherein Sandlot dodgeball has the nicest, most diverse people you’ll meet, not the “oh-my-god-4th-grade-bullying-nightmare-flashbacks!” people:

We’ve got corporate teams.  We’ve got church groups.  We’ve got college kids and 40 somethings with kids of their own and everything in between.

Because it’s about hitting people, because some of us are athletic 300 lb monsters and some of us are 90 lb beanpoles, it requires people to be cool.  Not bullies.  And that’s what we got!  From all walks of life.

By fostering a very specific “Hey, don’t be a dick” culture (it’s an industry term), we now have the most balanced gender ratio of any coed sports league you’re gonna find in the city.  Especially for a contact sport.  Pretty much, put a US Census demographics report in a blender and that’s what you’ll find here.  Pick any age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, career, sexual orientation - and we’ll show you a dodgeball all-star representative.   And at the end of a night we all end up the same anyway - a little black & blue.

Wherein we have a backstory:

Ari Goldberg started this at a time when there was no real dodgeball league in New York City.  There had been some groups in fits and starts, but nothing had stuck.  And for one of the fastest growing sports in the country, it seemed awfully silly that the country’s biggest city didn’t have that. So mustering all his expertise gleaned from such prestigious dodgeball institutes like “Elementary School” and “Summer Camp,” we now have one of the most inclusive organizations in the city.