The Kansas baseball team uses its annual preseason trip to Hawaii to prepare for upcoming games and conference play. But the actual preseason starts much earlier.

For a limited number of days in October, the Jayhawks grabbed the opportunity to scrimmage each other in a handful of series. During these exhibitions, the team fielded two full lineups as designated captains picked their teams to face off against their teammates.

“We probably play 15 games in the fall, some are six innings, some are seven,” coach Ritch Price said. “Fall ball is really important for where players start on the depth chart.”

Not only does fall ball serve as a preseason for the club’s returning starters, new transfers and freshmen, it also is an opportunity for walk-ons to try out for the team. That is, if they can make the team in only 14 days.

A NCAA rule states that each baseball team is given 132 days to play an entire season. The number of days used to play the spring season is automatically subtracted from 132. Whatever is left are the days available for playing the nontraditional season, “fall ball.” Only 14 days remained after subtracting this year’s spring season.

“It’s really difficult to make the team as a walk-on, but we do want to give them a chance. You’d have to be really good to walk on and in 14 days show the skills it would take to make a Division-I team,” Price said.

In fact, several schools have done away with walk-on tryouts. Price said he believed in looking at everyone who comes out, but he said he had to set aside time to evaluate his scholarship players’ off-season progress.

“When you only have 14 days, you can’t cheat your own club,” said Price.

Cheating the club is certainly not on the agenda in these packed few weeks. Price said he and his staff worked to get the freshmen and transfer players acquainted with each other and for them to get their first feel of what Big 12 Conference baseball is all about.

Fall ball is the best way for the coaches to see who improved, worked hard and developed new skills during the summer season, Price said. It also proved useful in designing each player’s individual winter workouts.

“We ask ourselves ‘can their role now change from what it was the previous year?’” he said.

The returning starters took the chance to simply go out and play some ball. The real test is for the freshmen.

“They usually come in as the best player in their league. It is the first time they are really put under pressure,” Price said.

He said the Hawaii trip, which begins on Feb. 4 this season, would allow position players to get the maximum number of at bats. Pitchers will each get an opportunity to pitch twice. The Hawaii preseason trip helps coaches decide who has improved enough to start in the regular season, Price said.

The fall preseason also gives each player the chance to get used to each other and to the new level of play.

Price said he made his assessment of Kansas’ most improved player during fall ball.

“John Allman was the most improved player from where he was a year ago to the progress he made this fall,” Price said. He said that Allman, who took a redshirt last year, impressed him enough during the fall preseason to earn a starting spot in Hawaii.

Although it would be more beneficial for the Jayhawks if they were allowed to play an actual opponent in the fall, when it comes to baseball they take what they can get.

“We would like to play someone else in the fall. The intersquad games are the only alternative we really have,” said Price.