Search
Related Links



    

Informative Articles

Balance Your Checkbook and Golf Swing
We all search for it. Balance in our daily lives. Balance while riding a bike. Politicians are always debating a balanced budget in Washington, and most of us could use a little balance in our checkbooks. Balance is a term used in golf quite often...

Is Your Child's Exercise Program Stunting Their Growth?
With childhood obesity on the rise, the benefits of a healthy lifestyle need to be instilled in our children at an early age. Studies have shown that children that are active throughout their teenage years have a greater chance of being healthy...

More Unusual Baseball Statistics
Back By Popular Demand Come and See Those Interesting Baseball Stats For some people this is Baseball Fantasy For some people this is Baseball Memorabilia For me it is joy and amazement. I love perusing the baseball stats. Walter Johnson - One...

That's a home run!
Its a Hit! Baseball is a favorite game of the Americans. No wonder it is the national sport of the United States of America. No one can say with much certainty when this game originated but according to some accounts it is said to have begun...

The Passion For Baseball
THE PASSION OF BASEBALL   What is something you are passionate about? Passion is contagious and feed off this positive energy. Have you ever seen two people who truly love the game of baseball talk about baseball? I had a friend’s wife tell...

 
Softball: Olympic Sport No Longer?

Softball has been around since a man named George Hancock first invented the game in 1887 in Chicago. It took over 100 years, but women's fast pitch softball became an Olympic event in 1996.

Fast pitch is different from the looping, relaxed pitch often used in recreational softball leagues. Fast pitch players must hit a ball traveling at about 70mph. This is slower than baseball, but certainly much faster than the meandering slow pitch game. However, since the pitcher's mound and the home plate are much closer than in baseball, (40 feet versus 60 feet) the player must react to the pitch just as quickly.

The first softball, a spur of the moment creation in that long-ago first game, was a boxing glove tied into the shape of a ball. Today's softball is 12" in diameter, significantly bigger than the standard base ball at 9", and all white. Softball is actually a misnomer, as the ball used in the game is no softer than a baseball, just larger.

The playing diamond is much smaller than baseball's, with only 60 feet between bases. Baseball diamonds have 90 feet between each base. This makes for a faster, more active game than baseball, a fact that many softball enthusiasts cite as one of the reasons they enjoy the game so much.

Softball games are also two innings shorter than baseball games. However, like baseball, softball seems to inspire devoted fans and players. Many truly love their softball and pursue the game with an almost fanatic passion.

In 1996, women's fast pitch softball made its first appearance at the Atlanta Olympic Games. The United States team took the first gold medal


in the sport, beating China in the gold medal game 3-1. An orthopedic surgeon from Florida, Dot Richardson, hit the first Olympic softball home run ever to win the game for the United States, an achievement she calls her most memorable.

After being an Olympic sport for the 1996, 2000 and 2004 Olympic games, softball was recently dropped from the 2012 London Olympics by a tied vote of 52-52 with one member abstaining. Only a simple majority of 53 votes were needed to keep softball in the Olympics, and softball supporters are trying to get the vote reconsidered.

Unfortunately, the Olympic committee doesn't seem very interested in recasting this important ballot. Although the softball federation will certainly have something to say about this, the situation doesn't look hopeful for girls fostering an Olympic fast pitch softball dream.

Perhaps confusion on the part of the Olympic committee caused them to drop women's fast-pitch softball from the London games. There has been speculation that the committee members thought that women's softball was just a female version of baseball, and not popular enough to matter. Whatever their motivations, we hope that the committee will reconsider and reinstate women's fast pitch softball.

About the author:

Jay Moncliff is the founder of http://www.softballcenter.info a website specialized on Softball, resources and articles. This site provides updated information on Softball. For more info visit his site: Softball

Sign up for PayPal and start accepting credit card payments instantly.