Looking back at the 2026 D1 season.

It was already six months ago, how time flies. The Huskies were playing their 96th double-play of the season, sweeping the champions of the regular season and filling a new and 19th chapter of their manual, to be put in everyone’s hands, « how to win a final ». Six long months without baseball later, we are finally approaching the « play ball » of the D1 season. As every year, most clubs have been shy about their recruitment. With the exception of the Huskies and the Pirates, the Biterrois have lessons to teach to older and more prestigious clubs, we don’t know much.

There are seven clubs that dream of being the first and only ones to defeat Rouen in the final. Montpellier is at the forefront of these clubs, having hired a third coach in three seasons and recruited a large number of young French prospects, while waiting for their foreign reinforcements. Savigny is also in the running, and will be playing its ‘home’ matches in Chartres this year. Toulouse, which has failed to make it to the semi-finals three times, is close to going further, while La Rochelle has parted ways with its coach and seems to be entrusting its reins to player-coaches. Sénart, which is looking to regain its former glory after two difficult seasons, Béziers, which has suffered a heavy loss of talent during the season but has not given up, and the PUC, which sees its record of 22 titles threatened by the Normandy pack. The Rouen team, in fact, has turned to Japan to recruit reinforcements and to young French prospects to rejuvenate its cadres.

Baseball TV France will return in more detail in the coming days on the strengths and weaknesses of each of the clubs, in order to allow you to make your predictions.

The only certainty is that it all starts again on April 4, with strong recommendations for all matches to take place on Saturday and Sunday. The CFS even vetoed requests for double programs on Sunday. Only Savigny, for reasons of organization with the Chartres club, will benefit from the possibility of playing only on Sunday. The final (sorry, the French Series, but we are not really fans of this name) will take place on September 19-20 and 26-27. 25 weeks, therefore, to play 14 league matches and 4 weekend playoffs, which leaves a lot of spare weekends, the first being postponed on April 18-19, after only two matches, which is a bit of a pity, the rhythm of the season is immediately fragmented. Otherwise, the season works in blocks of three matches followed by a spare weekend, with the particularity of two matches at the beginning of August, which leaves three weeks of rest before the semi-finals. Here too, we can regret a lack of continuity, but a calendar is never easy to build.

The French Challenge will take place from May 14 to 17 in Toulouse and Boe Bon-Encontre as in 2005 (victory of Savigny) and 2014 (victory of Sénart). Will the Toulousains succeed in breaking the curse of the organizing club (only once winner of the challenge in 21 editions) who remain on 6 consecutive first round eliminations? On the European side, Rouen and Savigny will travel from May 15 to 20 to Karlovac to face the local club, the Belgians from Braaschaat and the Czechs from Horsi Brno.

There are some new technical rules this season, such as the ban on defensive shifts (there must be two outfielders on either side of second base), the removal of the term « continuous movement », the pitcher is allowed to make a stop as long as it is not to slow down the runners, and without excessive pauses, except in case of injury, a pitcher who is already on the mound must face at least one batter at the beginning of the half-inning before being replaced, the number of visits (coach, manager, player) increases from 5 to 4.

Everything is in place, let the show begin.

F.C.