March 28, 2024

Technical Information Of Softball

It is a team sport in which a ball is hit with a bat, very similar to baseball.

HISTORY

Softball originated in Chicago on Thanksgiving, 1887. A group of about twenty young people gathered at the Farragut Boat Club Gym to hear the result of the Harvard vs. After Yale’s victory was announced and the bets were paid, a man took a lost boxing glove and threw it at someone, who hit him with a pole.

George Hancock, generally considered the inventor of Softball, shouted, “Let’s play the ball!” He tied the boxing glove so that it resembled a ball, chalk marked a diamond on the floor (dimensions smaller than a baseball field to fit in the gym) and broke a broomstick to serve as a bat.

What proceeded was a smaller version of baseball. That game now, 111 years later, known as the first softball game. Softball could have considered his death on the day of his birth if it hadn’t been for Hancock if he hadn’t been fascinated by it. Within a week, he created a large ball and an undersized rubber-tipped stick and went back to the gym to paint permanent white lines on the floor.

After he wrote new rules and named the sport Indoor Baseball, a more organized one, with everything still new, the game was played. His popularity was immediate.

Hancock’s original indoor baseball game quickly gained popularity, becoming international with the formation of a league in Toronto. That year, 1897, was also the publication of the premier of the Indoor Baseball guide. This was the first nationally distributed publication in the new game and lasted a decade. In the spring of 1888, Hancock’s game moved to the open air.

It was played on a small diamond and called Indoor – Outdoors. Due to the sport’s total appeal, Hancock published its first set of Indoor – Outdoor rules in 1889. While Chicago was definitely a Softball birthplace, the game considered some modification in Minneapolis. The year was 1895 when Lewis Rober, (a fire marshal) needed an activity to keep his men busy and fit during his free time.

He created his game to fit the boundaries of a vacant lot next to the fire station and the result immediately appealed. Amazingly, Rober did not know Hancock’s version of the sport because it was still concentrated in Chicago at that time. The following year, 1896, Rober was transferred to a new unit with new driving equipment.

In honor of this group name, The Kittens, the game was called the Kitten League Ball in 1900. The name was later shortened to the Kitten Ball.


To reach the Olympics, the sport of women’s softball obviously had to grow greatly from its beginnings. The women’s Softball team was formed in 1895 at West Division High School.

They didn’t get a coach for competitive play until 1899 and it was difficult to create interest among fans. However, only five years later, more attention was given to women’s play. The Spalding Indoor Baseball Guide 1904 fueled this attention by dedicating a large section of the guide to women’s Softball play.

The national tournament in Chicago in 1933 also advanced the sport. In this competition, male and female champions were honored equally. The 1965 International Softball World Championships developed women’s softball into an international game, a step toward the Pan American Games and the Olympics.

Eleven years later, women’s softball players gave the closest equivalent to Major League Baseball with the 1976 formation of the International Women’s Softball League professional league.

The player’s contracts ranged from about $1,000 to $3,000 per year, but the league was dissolved in 1980 due to financial ruin. Vicki Schneider, a professional player from the St. Louis Hall of Fame, remembers this league as being the high point of her career (Schneider).

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF SOFTBALL

Advantages:

  • Strengthening: strengthens the abdomen, muscles, legs and forearms.
  • Reduces fat: helps burn fat and lose body weight.
  • More flexibility: improves muscle flexibility.
  • Reduces stress: helps to reduce and minimize tension and stress.
  • Development of the extremities: favours the development of the upper and lower extremities.
  • Increases control: increases personal self-control by improving situations where there is a lot of tension.

Disadvantages:

  • Fractures: Fractures usually appear to a large extent when playing baseball.
  • Injuries: when practicing this sport, injuries to elbows and shoulders are very common.
  • Shock syndrome: this is a major injury that occurs in a part of the shoulder.
  • Joint overload: ball throws usually cause overload in the elbow and shoulder joints.

SOFTBALL RULES

Elements of play.

The following elements are used for this sport:
a pitcher’s plate, a home plate, 3 bases, a ball, a bat and demarcation lines.
School players may or may not wear gloves.

FIELD OF PLAY.

The game takes place primarily in the space between two lines (fault lines) that form a right angle to each other.

Inside the game a square of 18.30 mts. will be drawn to the side. In each one of the vertices of this one the bases will be located, that will play the role of temporary refuges for the players of the equipment that attacks. One of these bases is a pentagonal figure (home) and it will be placed in the vertex formed by the two fault lines.

The pitcher’s circle will be located in the center of the square with its center at 14 mts. for men and 12 mts. for women.