A Look at the 2026 D1 Season.
It was six months ago, time sure flies. The Huskies were playing their 96th double-header of the season, sweeping the regular season champions 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 definitely lessons to give to older and more prestigious clubs, we don’t know much.
What is certain, is that there are seven clubs that dream of being the first, to become the one that will finally defeat Rouen in the final. At the top of them, Montpellier, who is getting a third coach in three seasons and has largely drawn from the pool of young French hopefuls, while waiting to know its foreign reinforcements. And then Savigny, who is always there and will play its ‘home’ games in Chartres, Toulouse, who failed three times in the semi-finals and doesn’t lack much to go further, La Rochelle, who parted ways with its coach and seems to be entrusting its reins to player-coaches, Sénart, in search of its past glory after two difficult seasons, Béziers, who suffered a significant loss of talent during the season, but hasn’t stayed put, and the PUC, who sees its record of 22 titles threatened by the Norman pack. The people of Rouen, precisely, have turned to Japan to strengthen themselves and to some young French hopefuls to rejuvenate the team.
Baseball TV France will come back in more detail in the coming days on the strengths and weaknesses of each club, to allow you to make your predictions.
The only certainty is that everything starts again on April 4, with strong recommendations for all meetings to take place on Saturdays and Sundays. The CFS has indeed vetoed requests for double programs on Sundays. Only Savigny, for organizational reasons with the Chartres club, will benefit from the possibility of playing only on Sundays. The final (sorry, the French Series, but we’re not really fans of this name) will take place on September 19-20 and 26-27. 25 weeks, therefore, to play 14 days of championship and 4 weekends of play-offs, which leaves room for many reserve days, the first being scheduled for April 18-19, or after only two days, which is a bit of a shame, the rhythm of the season becoming fragmented right away. Otherwise, the season works in blocks of three days followed by a reserve, with the particularity of two days at the beginning of August, which leaves three weeks of rest before the semi-finals. There too, we can regret a lack of continuity, but a calendar is never easy to build.
The Challenge de France will take place from May 14 to 17 in Toulouse and Boe Bon-Encontre, as in 2005 (Savigny’s victory) and 2014 (Sénart’s victory). Will the Toulousains succeed in breaking the curse of the host club (only one victory in the challenge in 21 editions) they who remain on 6 consecutive eliminations in the 1st round? On the European side, Rouen and Savigny will travel from June 15 to 20 to Karlovac to face the local club, the Belgians of Braaschaat and the Czechs of Horsi Brno.
We note some technical novelties this season, such as the prohibition of the shift in defense (there must be two players in front of the field on either side of second base), the suppression of the term ‘continuous movement’, the pitcher being allowed to make a stop as long as it’s not to slow down the runners, and without excessive pause, except in case of injury, a pitcher already on the mound must face at least one batter at the start of the half-inning before a change, the number of visits (coach, manager, player) goes from 5 to 4.
Everything is in place, let the show begin.
F.C.
