Do you think you know softball? Where did it come from? When did the first women’s league start? Well all of these you probably don’t know the answer to. So, to educate and hopefully get you interested in softball I’m writing my paper on these wondering questions.

Softball is a direct descendant of baseball. There are plenty of important differences? Softballs are larger than baseballs, softball pitchers are thrown under hand than baseball pitchers are thrown over hand. Softball is played on a smaller diamond than in baseball. A softball field average distance from home plate to center, left and right field. Fences are 220ft for females and 250ft for males. This all probably sounds pretty boring, trust me I know, but it all plays a huge role in the game.

The earliest softball game was played in Chicago, Illinois on Thanksgiving day in 1887. It took place at the Farragut Boat club to hear the out come. The Yale and Harvard football game. When the score was announced and bets were settled, a Yale alumnus threw a boxing glove at a Harvard supporter. The other person grabbed a stick and swung at it. George Hancock called out “Play Ball”. The game began, with the boxing glove, tighten into a ball, a broom handle serving as a bat. The name “softball” dates back to 1926. The name was coined by Walter Hakanson of the YMCA. The name softball had spread across the united states by 1930.

Lastly, have you ever wondered what they first called the softball? Or how many different kinds there are. A sixteen inch softball, also called the “mush ball” or super-slow pitch, is a direct descendent of Hancock’s original game. Sixteen-inch softball is played extensively in areas lives in Chicago, where devotes such as the late Mike Royko consider it the “real game”. The first British women’s softball league was established in 1952. In 1991 women’s first fast pitch was selected to debut at the 1996 Summer Olympics. The 117th meeting of the International Olympic Committee, held in Singapore in July 2005, voted to drop softball and baseball as Olympic sports for the 2012 summer Olympic games.

In conclusion, this paper may have been incredibly boring for some but this is very interesting to know. Who would have thought George Hancock would have started softball! I included information on how the game was first started. Who started it, what they were first called and when the first Women’s league was established.