What parents ask

How do I pick by age?

Start from the range printed on each toy page; it comes from the listing, not from us being optimistic. When a range spans your kid, look at what the toy asks of them: a still tee asks less than a lobbed pitch, a door hoop less than a tall one. Our matcher turns three answers into a short list.

Do the lights need anything from me?

The light-up and scorekeeping sets run on ordinary household batteries, except for the few machines with a built-in pack that tops up from a cable. Each toy page says which kind it is, and whether the listing includes batteries is printed on the listing itself.

What comes in the box?

The whole game. A tee set has its bat and balls, a bow has its arrows and target, a hoop has its ball and often a spare. If something extra is needed, the toy page says so plainly.

Can the indoor toys really live indoors?

That is what they are built around: soft balls, suction tips and padded door hooks. Walls and windows are part of the plan. What a given toy wants from the room, a doorway, a stretch of floor, a stretch of wall, is on its page.

Who handles the order?

Our retail partner does. The buy buttons on this site open the product page there; payment, delivery and the paper trail all live in your account with them.

A part is missing or broken. Now what?

Go through the store that sold the toy; their order page is the road to a replacement. And write to us too, not to route the parcel but because we want to know which corner of which box needs more padding.