Baseball programs guide

The Tomball Kings offer high school and youth baseball programs throughout the year. We organize these programs by (i) grade or playing age, as applicable, and (ii) season.

We do not necessarily offer the same programs each season. We determine what programs to support in particular seasons on the basis of player evaluations, availability, and development needs. See our Spring 2026 baseball guide for information on the current season.

As an organization, we seek to prepare younger players to succeed in highly-competitive play at the high school level and beyond, and thus shape our program offerings from season to season in order to best prepare our players for that level of competition.

Seasons

We assign each season to an “academic year” that commences September 1 and concludes May 31. For program purposes we treat summer as the first season of the academic year, even though it concludes before the academic year commences. Spring is the final season of the academic year.

Our seasons are summer, fall, winter, and spring, divided according to the following schedule:

June 1 through August 31 ("Summer")
September 1 through November 30 ("Fall")
December 1 through January 15 ("Winter")
January 16 through May 31 ("Spring")

Divisions

Our current divisions for baseball-competition purposes are:

Upper school (high school freshmen through seniors)
Middle school (grades 5 through 8)
Lower school (grades 3 and 4)

These divisions align with common transition points or steps in the development of young baseball players, corresponding with changes in physical maturity, athletic ability, baseball skill, field sizes, and game rules.

Within each division we may field multiple rosters in a particular season, either at a given playing age or across multiple playing ages. For example, in the upper school division we may field varsity, junior varsity, and freshman/sophomore teams. From time to time, particularly at younger playing ages, we may form practice-only rosters or attach a practice squad to a game roster. We make these determinations on a season-to-season basis in accordance with player evaluations, availability, and development needs.

Grades and playing ages

For each student-athlete we compute three "ages" based upon birthdate:

Calendar (actual) age
Age as of September 1 ("interscholastic competition age")
Age as of April 30 ("youth competition age" for "and under" ("U") competition)

We also require parents of each student-athlete to declare for their student a graduation-class year, e.g., "Class of 2031," and we compute a playing-grade from that declaration. For example, in the 2025-2026 academic year, we would classify a player whose graduating class is 2029 as a freshman.

We use these playing ages to determine a player’s age eligibility for league, tournament, or interscholastic competition, as well as for participation in our training programs, camps, and clinics.

With the approval of our coaches and director of baseball operations, we may allow a player to compete at a playing age higher than his computed playing age (known as “playing up”), but never at a lower playing age.

As an organization, we welcome players who have a playing age of at least six years by April 30 of a given year but not more than eighteen years by September 1 of a given year. This means, for example, that a player who turns nineteen years of age on September 2 or later of a given year would still be age-eligible for high school play, but one who has reached age nineteen on or before September 1 would be ineligible.

We take grade level into account for determination of (i) eligibility for interscholastic play and (ii) when a player must begin high school play. Only players in grades nine through twelve may compete in high school baseball. Middle school competition is limited to players in grades five through eight.

Rosters

The Tomball Kings operate under a “one team” concept. This means that as an organization, we treat all players on Tomball Kings game rosters, irrespective of playing age, as part of one team. We expect our older players to view our younger players as teammates and to help and encourage them accordingly.

The director of baseball operations determines all roster assignments, in consultation with division coaches. All roster assignments are season to season in nature. Even within a season, roster assignments may change. For example, a junior varsity player may be moved to varsity and vice versa. Freshmen are eligible for the varsity roster.

Seasonal priorities

We support and provide programs for year-round improvement in athleticism and baseball skill, but vary our program offerings by season.

Spring is our primary game season. During the spring season, all rosters in all divisions participate either in interscholastic or league competition.

We gear our programs in the summer, fall, and winter seasons toward spring as our primary game season. Our priority for each of these other seasons is to prepare all of our players to perform to the best of their abilities during spring interscholastic and league play.

Across all seasons, we offer programs to improve player strength, speed, stamina, power, mobility, and resilience against injury. Our cornerstone sports performance program is Newton, which operates year-round.

We strongly encourage all students to play multiple sports and to make their in-season sport their priority for that season.

We also encourage all students to pursue collegiate competition opportunities and to prepare themselves accordingly, both academically and athletically.

Current baseball programs

See these guides for information on our current offerings for baseball players:

For more information about our baseball programs please contact:

John Harris
512-470-0915
support@tomballkings.org