Softball is a sport around the world that is gaining a lot of popularity, and Jennie Finch wants to bring the sport back into the olympics. In the article “ Jennie Finch Makes Case For Olympic Softball “, It talks about why Jennie wants the sport to return to the olympics. Jennie Finch is an a two time olympic medalist, a gold and silver medal, and she also played at the University of Arizona where she once had a sixty game winning streak. In 2013, Jennie wrote an essay explaining why softball should be in the 2020 olympics. In the essay, she says that including softball in the olympics would inspire women all over and give them the opportunity to participate in the greatest celebration of sport known to man, The Olympic Games. She goes on
She’s a great player, who holds multiple records and has played professional softball for a decade. She became the first player to accumulate 300 career hits in 2014 and set a enduring league record for hits in 2011. She’s also tied second in amount of stolen bases. She’s also overall a really great person. She has a foundation, the Natasha Watley Foundation, which promotes active and healthy lifestyle choices for all age groups and cultures who are ready to make a difference. It encourages softball as an alternative outlet of daily stressors and hosts a 5k walk in support of the cause. She puts a focus on the social issues that affect women. She’s opening doors and changing lives. She wants to make softball a sport for
“You play like a girl!” used to be one of baseball’s classic insults. Not anymore. Softball diva Jennie Finch has made it cool to not only throw like a girl, but to run, field and hit like one, too. Not since Babe Ruth has a player dominated so completely from the pitching rubber and the batter’s box, and she even gives the Bambino a run for his money in the charisma department. Jennie has also accomplished something Ruth never could: She is showing the boys it’s okay to be one of the girls. This is her story…
Softball is harder than baseball. The three main reasons are, softball players have less time to react to the ball, hitting a softball is harder than hitting a baseball. The last reason is slap hitters or left-handed hitters in softball.
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.
Of all the sports that I have seen I can say with all confidence I never thought softball would be my sport. When I first thought about playing softball I thought I could never do it. Then, as I finally agreed to play softball, I was completely petrified. I got on the field and the first thing I did was mess up and I messed up badly. I barely could catch a ball here, I was standing there watching everyone play like pros.
Women don’t receive the spotlight in sports very often. Usually, the men in baseball, football, basketball, and soccer have higher salaries and are paid attention to more. This wasn’t the case with a special league of female baseball players. These ladies sparked a thought in peoples’ heads in the mid 20th-century. Could women really play a professional sport instead of staying home to do the housework? From 1943-1954, women in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League helped to change the rights women were believed to have in society and in the workplace as they began playing a professional sport as a form of entertainment. Men, who would usually fulfill this role, were drafted into the military with the responsibility to serve during the war. The AAGPBL quickly became a world-winning group of women athletes and kept baseball and peoples' hopes alive during a time of weakness in American history.
My small, sweaty palms griped the cold fence as I looked on nervously at my brother’s baseball game. I was waiting for the final out of the game so that I could run onto the field and around the bases as I did after every game. As a young child, my parents were always searching for something to keep me entertained. I was a bubbly child with an endless amount of energy. Being that I was the only girl amongst four boys, I was always electrified in their presence. I wanted to be involved in all their wrestling, running and playing. Being the type of child who loved to play, I would stay outside until I was forced to come in. I would run along the dimly lit street, making up my own games and making new friends. Even when I got older, my energy did not fade. At
As Paige and I walked across the field towards our team I felt euphoric. Four long years of work, sweat, and dedication had led up to this night. It was the perfect end to my senior year of softball. The scoreboard just beyond the mass of sweaty, screaming softball players read 15-0. This was the final score of the district championship game, a game my team had never won before. The applause and cheers of the fans echoed in my ears for hours afterward
In 1970 only 1 in 27 girls participated in high school sports, today that ratio is 1 in 3. Sports are a very important part of the American society. Within sports heroes are made, goals are set and dreams are lived. The media makes all these things possible by creating publicity for the rising stars of today. Within society today, the media has downplayed the role of the woman within sports. When the American people think of women in sports, they think of ice skating, field hockey and diving. People don’t recognize that women have the potential to play any sport that a Man can play, with equal skill, if not better.
For this Women of Diversity Group Project, my group chose to write about female pioneers in sport. Within that category I chose female pioneers of softball. During this paper I will discuss the history of the sport and female participation in the sport. I will also give some statistics and make comparisons between females and males involved in softball and baseball.
Ring, Jennifer (2009). Stolen bases: Why american girls don’t play baseball. Chicago Il: University of Illinois Press.
For many years, baseball has been a male dominated sport and still is today by the limited amount of female baseball players and the nonexistence of women’s league in the MLB. Women are categorized into a similar game to baseball known as softball, thus arguing that women do not have the same physical ability as men. During the rare times you would notice a female baseball player or any female athlete, society is very quick on labeling these females as lesbians, dutch or dyke. This exemplifies the inequality of gender roles within the sport culture as society struggles with the acceptance of female athletes because they are portrayed to be weak and pristine. It is also argued that baseball has been stereotypically represented to be more of a “father and son” game since at most events, it is more likely to see a male individual bring other male friends for a guy’s night out watching the game of baseball and drinking beer. Rarely would you ever see a father bringing their daughter to these games mainly because of the stereotype of sports being a manly thing in which creates the stereotype of women to be interested in less aggressive activities such as dance. Thus, it is proven that Sports revolve around men causing them to be interpreted as masculine activities in which women should not participate in due to their feminine qualities that are perceived as
For many years gender inequality in sports was still present, even after the women's right movement, Title IX was passed in 1972 (Sandys, 2007). Title IX banned sex discrimination in any education program that is federally financed. This was supposed to correct the imbalance of treatment between the sexes of college students. Since the passing of the federal gender-equality law, universities started to offer a chance for many of women to participate, that was not previously offered before (Adams & Tuggle, 2004). Now that more women have jumped into the sports arena, many institutions are giving the appearance of offering more sports to females (Hardin & Shain, 2005). Equal opportunity for women in sports would provide better psychological and sociological development that would derive from the impact of sports participation.