The Central Iowa Baseball and Softball Association provides recreational baseball and softball opportunities for Marshall County area youth and has been around for decades. The CIBSA Board organizes the league, which includes 11 towns.
The towns that belong to the league include Albion, Baxter, Clemons, Ferguson, Garwin, Laurel, LeGrand, Marshalltown, Melbourne, Rhodes, South Tama and State Center. Each town has its own Board of Directors who organize each club’s individual operations, and each town has and cares for its own ball diamonds. Typically, youth register to play in the town in which they live or live nearest to, and each town sets a Player Policy to determine eligibility guidelines beyond the age divisions the CIBSA sets forth.
There are four divisions available for girls softball and four divisions available for boys baseball, shown below. Because the league is in a rural setting, the age divisions actually go by the grade the player is currently in rather than by their birthdate.
T-Ball girls softball – Grades K-1
Peewee girls softball – Grades 2-4
Minor girls softball – Grades 5-7
Majors girls softball – Grades 8-12
T-Ball boys baseball – Grades K-1
Peewee boys baseball – Grades 2-4
Minor boys baseball – Grades 5-7
Babe Ruth boys baseball – Grades 8-11
The league follows the same rules that the high schools follow, with some by-laws, and those are available under the “Rules” section of our website.
A typical CIBSA season goes as follows:
March:
*Registrations are held. Each individual town/club sets its own registration dates/deadlines.
*The CIBSA Board holds the Spring Informational Meeting.
April:
*The CIBSA Board organizes the Game Scheduling Meeting.
*Teams begin practicing. The actual practice dates and times are set by each individual club/town.
May:
*Regular season games begin.
June:
*Regular season games continue.
*The CIBSA Board sets the brackets, dates, and times for the end-of-season league tournament at the Tournament Scheduling Meeting.
July:
*League tournament is held the first two weeks of the month.
September:
*Fall Rules Meeting is held by the CIBSA Board.
If you have any questions about the league, please contact any Board Member. If you have any information about the history of the League, please email or USPS mail that information to the League Secretary.