Softball is a sport that is known throughout the United States and the world. Softball originated on Thanksgiving Day in Chicago in 1887. The game was actually said to have begun as an indoor game. Softball was started by a group of men who had gathered at a club to watch the Harvard vs. Yale football game. When the news came that Yale had defeated Harvard, 17-8, one Yale supporter, overcome with enthusiasm, picked up an old boxing glove and threw it at a nearby Harvard alumni, who promptly tried to hit it back with a stick. This gave George Hancock, a reporter for the Chicago Board of Trade, an idea. He suggested a game of indoor baseball. Naturally, Hancock's friends thought he was talking about playing a game outdoors, not indoors. Hancock, however, wasn't kidding. Using what was available, he tied together the laces of a boxing glove for a ball. Using a piece of chalk, Hancock marked off a home plate, bases and a pitcher's box inside the Farragut Boat Club gymnasium, with the two groups divided into two teams. The final score of the game was 41-40, but what was significant was that Hancock and his friends had invented a sport that would grow in popularity to where today more than 25 million people enjoy playing it in the United States and millions more internationally in more than 100 countries. Hancock set up rules and had his friends over to his house every Saturday night to play this new game. From there it spread all over Chicago. The first rulebook is said to have b...
The big question for people who don’t play this question is really, what is softball? Softball is a little bit more modified version of baseball but softball is played on a smaller field,with a larger ball, played with 7 innings instead of 9 and with underarm pitch in a circular motion. Now that we know what the basic part of softball is let’s talk about the equipment. The equipment used to play softball is a bat about waist level give or
The first reason is, softball players have less time to react to the ball while batting and fielding. Softball fields are closer and smaller than baseball fields. Baseball infields are 16,700 feet and softball infields are only 7,200 feet. This leaves softball players in the infield, outfield and the batters with less time to react to a pitch or a hit. The distance from home plate to the pitcher's mound in softball is 43 feet while in baseball it is 60 feet. Sarah Trifoso plays for the Niagra Purple Eagles
The All-American Professional Girls Baseball League was the first, and only, female baseball league in history. This league was developed during World War II when “ in the interests of patriotism, women were encouraged to do all the things normally reserved for men” (Johnson XIX). At the time the book, When Women Played Hardball, was written in 1994, no other professional sports team had lasted as long as this baseball league. The league lasted a solid nine years. These women did not just play baseball, they broke records. “ Kurys, the "Flint Flash", stole 201 bases [in a season]. Her career tally of 1114 stolen bases is a professional baseball record...She [Joanne Weaver] is tied for the fourth best batting average in the history of professional baseball, and she's the last player in the history of the game to bat over .400” (XXII/XXIII Johnson). Today, these women still hold records in major league baseball. At the peak of the league in 1948, the league “ consisted of 10 teams that entertained nearly 1,000,000 fans in middle sized Midwestern cities” (XXI Johnson). Every team attracted loyal and enthusiastic fans. At first, crowds came to the game to see the unusual sight of women playing baseball, but soon kept coming back because of the level of play and because they enjoyed watching the game. Every woman in that league just
Though the practices performed within softball literacy do not immediately seem as if they should be considered a literacy practice, according to two of the six propositions about the nature of literacy, it is. Not only does it involve the physical performance from a play, but also includes formal writings, new rules and regulations, and offer different rules in different countries. I think softball should be counted as a literacy practice because it appeals to Barton and Hamilton’s propositions and includes artifacts that make it a community and artifacts that provide the players with essential people skills.
While the games of baseball and softball each have many fans, many players prefer to play one or the other but not both. Although baseball and softball are similar in many ways, they have some notable differences. The pace with which each game is played, the rules of each, and the level of leagues are different for each.
Over the past fifteen to twenty years women's fastpitch softball popularity has continued to grow and spread internationally. By the mid-1990s it was played in more than 85 countries under the eye of the International Softball Federation (ISF). It has become increasingly popular among women at the youth and collegiate levels. More than 630 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) member institutions sponsor women's softball programs, and national championships for women are held in all three NCAA sports divisions (Encarta, 1998). In 1991 women's fastpitch softball was selected to debut as a medal sport in the 1996 Olympic Summer Games in Columbia, Georgia. The U.S. won the gold medal in the 1996 Olympic Games due to a good defense and great hitters on the team. Even though defense and pitching are critical and vital parts of the game, a successful team must have an effective offense to win the game. Among all the standout hitters on the U.S. Olympic team, two of the best are Dot Richardson and Lisa Fernadez. Both Lisa and Dot have picture-perfect swings, which have made them very productive throughout their careers. Today there is a women's professional fastpitch softball league. Interest in the Women's Professional Softball League (WPSL) has been increasing for the last three years and continues to grow each year.
Baseball has been of the longest living sports in our world today. The game started with the idea of a stick and ball and now has become one of the most complex sports known in our society. Several rules and regulations have been added to help enhance the game for everyone. Although baseball has endured several issues during its history and development of the game the game has still been a success throughout the world.
Now if you're anything like me, you know that when you start a sport for the first time. You have questions like my first question, “what in the world is softball”. Well now that I am a”softball”player I can tell you all there is to know about softball. Softball is a game between two teams with two sections to the field in field and outfield. There is the pitcher, the catcher, 1st,2nd,and3rd baseman, shortstop, and left,right,and center field.
I spend six days per week for twelve months straight practicing catching, throwing, and hitting a softball. My friends call me crazy when I have to leave their house at ten o’clock on a Friday night to go play in a midnight madness softball tournament. They think I am insane for travelling to away, out-of-state tournaments each weekend. However, ten years of competitive, travel softball and nearly nine hundred games have molded me into the person I am today. Many people do not understand why I spend the majority of my time playing competitive softball, and they fail to recognize that my entire identity is a result of this sport. However, I am aware that I would not be who I am without it.
Baseball/softball was, is, and always will be one of the most popular sports of all time. Homeruns, stealing second base, and spectacular plays and catches on the playing field will continue to catch the eyes of millions of people around the globe. Today I’m going to give you a brief demonstration of how the game of baseball/softball is played.
Since the sport first emerged, baseball and America have shared the same values, responded to the same events, and struggled with the same social and economic issues. To learn of the ideals concerning the sport of baseball in America, is to know the heart and mind of America. Baseball developed before the Civil War but did not achieve professional status until the 1870s (The Baseball Glove, 2004). In 1871, the National Association of Professional Baseball Players was formed. Unfortunately, the organization ran into financial hardships and was abandoned in 1875.
Americans began playing baseball on informal teams, using local rules, in the early 1800s. By the 1860s, the sport, unrivaled in popularity, was being described as America's "national pastime." Alexander Joy Cartwright of New York invented the modern baseball field in 1845. Alexander Cartwright and the members of his New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club devised the first rules and regulations for the modern game of baseball.
In early May 2002, a ban that the management of Major League Baseballs’ Seattle Mariners imposed requiring non-admittance of any fan wearing a tee shirt saying, “Yankees Suck” was finally lifted. Telling the Seattle Mariner fans that the word “suck” was offensive and had no place in a family atmosphere, was out of line to many. The backlash from the fans was overwhelming to the point that Mariners management had no choice but to lift the ban. The ban caused three major backlashes: It angered season ticket holders, it told the fans that the first amendment could be twisted at the ballpark, and it tried to strip fans of team spirit and pride. Mariner management ignored the minor uprising as long as possible until the ban reached near boiling point levels. Things have since settled down in Seattle, but hopefully Mariner management will not try a stunt like the ban anytime soon.
Baseball was first introduced into the American culture, by English immigrants in the early 18th century, and its popularity slow grew. It wasn’t until the Civil War the popularity of the game spread, and both Union and Confederate soldiers played baseball during lulls in the fighting. After Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, soldiers from both the Army of Northern Virginia (Confederate) and the Army of the Potomac (Union) played baseball. (Schackelford Jul 4, 2009) This was the beginning of the American people love of Baseball began. It was also the first mention of baseball being the national game. During the bloodiest war in our countries history Baseball was there to help the two sides heal. It was another fourteen years till 1879 when Football would be invented.
Baseball is a very well known sport and often known as “America’s pastime” and softball is highly similar, but with a few key differences. Many people just assume that the sport of baseball is more difficult than softball, but don’t actually know the specific parts of each of the two. Also, if you’ve never played one or the other sport, you shouldn’t be assuming anything at all in the first place. Although many assume one may be harder than the other, baseball and softball both have particular factors which make them both complex in their own way.