Photo Essay              Shelby Raney

 

 

Softball

Although many people think that softball was derived from baseball, the sport’s first

game actually came about because of a football game. Softball dates back to

Thanksgiving Day of 1887, when several alumni sat in the Chicago, anxiously awaiting

to see who won the Yale versus Harvard football game. When Yale was announced as

winner, a Yale alumnus playfully threw a boxing glove at a Harvard supporter. The

Harvard fan swung at the balled-up glove with a stick. George Hancock, a reporter for the

Chicago Board of Trade, jokingly called out, “Play ball!” and the first softball game was

played with the football fans using the boxing glove as a ball and a broom handle in place

of a bat.

 

 

 

Due to the initial excitement of the the game, the “Players” decided to officially devise

their own set of rules, and the game quickly leaked to outsiders in Chicago and,

eventually, throughout the rest of the Midwestern U.S. As the history of softball shaped

itself over the next decade, the game went under the guise of many names. Some

including “indoor baseball,” “kitten baseball,” “diamond ball,” “mush ball,” and

“pumpkin ball.” In 1926, Walter Hakanson coined the term “softball” while representing

the YMCA at a National Recreation Congress meeting, and by 1930, the term stuck as

the sport’s official name. And from  then on we called it Softball.

 

 

 

In 1934, the Joint Rules Committee on Softball collaborated to create a set of basic rules.

Up until this point, the game was being played with varied rules, player positions, and

ball sizes. They needed to make it to where all games would be somewhat similar. The

original softball used was 16 inches in circumference. However, Lewis Rober Sr., the

man responsible for organizing softball games for firefighters in Minneapolis, used a 12-

inch ball. Rober’s ball won out as the preferred softball size, and professional softball

games today are played using a 10–12-inch ball. However, many Chicagoans still hold

fast to the belief that real softball is played using a 16-inch ball. Games using these 16-

inch balls are often referred to as “cabbage ball,” “super slow pitch,” and “mush ball,”

and unlike competitive softball, players are not allowed to wear fielding gloves.

 

 

 

According to the official rules developed early in the history of softball, and eventually

defined by the International Softball Federation, there are nine players on the field at a

time. The players take the positions of pitcher, catcher, first baseman, second baseman,

shortstop, third baseman, and outfielder. Usually, there are three outfielders holding the

positions of right fielder, left fielder, and center fielder. However, slow pitch softball

allows for a fourth person in the outfield along with the other three. Similar to baseball,

the team with the most runs at the end of the seventh inning is the winning team.

However, if the teams are tied at the end of the seventh inning, the game can go into extra

innings, until the tie is broken.

 

 

 

Though today there are many rules, in which us girls have to follow by when

 

playing the sport, there didn’t used to be so many rules. Now there are many different

 

leagues, divisions, and places to play this amazing sport. I love softball and always will.