Ruben Amaro Jr.’s new venture Sluggball is baseball’s version of Topgolf meets pickleball

The Phillies hired Ruben Amaro Jr. to be an assistant general manager three weeks before he played his final game. He did not even wait until retirement to find his next chapter. Amaro was moving upstairs, but he still planned to wear a uniform, throw batting practice, and shag fly balls every afternoon.

“Then Ed Wade told me, ‘You need to quit cold turkey,’” Amaro said of the team’s former general manager. “If you want to be a front office guy, you have to get off the field, come out of the uniform, and come back to 500 feet where we watch the game.”

That was that. Amaro retired after the 1998 season, ditched his uniform, and spent batting practice with the decision makers. His 16 years in the front office included seven seasons as the general manager, two trips to the World Series, and some of the greatest teams in franchise history. But Amaro was missing something.

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When the Phillies fired him in 2015, Amaro joined the Red Sox as a first-base coach. He returned to the uniform he left behind. Amaro was in the clubhouse every afternoon with the other coaches, guys he played with years earlier. His front-office life was exhilarating — the Phillies went to five straight postseasons — but Amaro missed the feelings he felt every afternoon since he played at Penn Charter. He had that again.

And he was reminded of that last September when Amaro helped introduce Sluggball, baseball’s version of Top Golf that officially launches in May. They tested it out last September in Trenton, and the players told Amaro how it reminded them of their playing days. They competed with their friends, felt like they were part of a team, and swung the bat like they used to.

“It brought me back to how I felt in Boston,” said Amaro, 59.

Amaro is one of the founders of Sluggball, which pits teams of four against each other in a hitting competition. But Sluggball is not a home run derby; participants instead are challenged to hit the ball to specific areas of the field. In one round, you have to pull the ball. The next round tasks you to hit it the other way. It’s situational hitting.

The first event — which is open to anyone 21 and older — is May 10 at Trenton Thunder Ballpark. Every team has to supply its own batting practice pitcher. So far, there are six events planned this year at minor-league ballparks, and it returns to Trenton on Aug. 24.

“It’s more of an experience than anything else,” said Amaro, who now serves as a color analyst on Phillies telecasts. “There’s nothing like putting a bat to the ball. It’s something that’s really, really fun to do. Hard thing to do, but something as a baseball player and baseball fan, it’s something you dreamed of doing. Just making solid contact, and this presents people with the experience of being able to do this in a competitive environment with a group of friends.”

Each Sluggball game takes about an hour. It does not require players to man the field or run the bases. They simply just need to hit the ball. Umpires keep score, and a former big leaguer will be at every event. Amaro thinks it can become baseball’s small-sided version.

“Tennis has pickleball, there’s three-on-three basketball, there’s flag football,” Amaro said. “But where’s the baseball alternative? For people who dreamed of continuing to swing the bat and making contact with the baseball, I think this is a really cool alternative opportunity to do it.

“I think it’s one of those things that when people play it, they’ll say, ‘Man, I know I can do better the next time.’ I feel like it’s one of those games that people will want to get better at and advance at and keep playing.”

The game was developed by Amaro and his brother, David, along with a group of area businessmen who have baseball backgrounds. Topgolf — which rewards golfers for hitting a ball at targets — has exploded in recent years. Amaro thinks Sluggball could expand rapidly in five years.

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“I think baseball in general has gotten away from the beauty of the game,” Amaro said. “The last 10, 12, 15 years, there’s been an emphasis on hitting the ball out of the ballpark. Home run derby baseball, and it took away from the beauty of the game.

“One, not everyone can hit the ball out of the ballpark. Two, the important and fun part about baseball is the action that’s created in the game and the ability to utilize your skill to make bat hit ball and guide where you’re hitting it and the challenge to do that. It’s one of the hardest things to do in sports. It creates a competition that people would not get once they’re done playing whatever sport they’re playing.”

Amaro took swings at batting cages after retiring and joined a softball team, but nothing could replicate the feelings from being a player until he was back in uniform with Boston. It felt like old times. And that’s why he thinks Sluggball will work. It gives people a feeling that they’ve been missing.

“I wish I could have had something to do when I stopped playing where I could’ve competed with buddies I played high school ball with or what have you and done this,” Amaro said. “There was no way to recreate this. If you’re a baseball player, there is something in you.”