You would think that the sport of softball would be derived from baseball. However, softball started with a football game. On Thanksgiving of 1887, the Yale VS Harvard football game took place. Several alumni of these schools sat in the Chicago, Illinois Farragut Boat Club, anxiously awaiting the results of the game. When Yale was announced the winner, a Yale supported playfully threw a boxing glove at a Harvard supporter. The Harvard supporter swung at the glove with a stick that he had. Someone in the crowd jokingly yelled “Play ball!” and the first softball game was played with a boxing glove and stick.
The Farragut Boat Club came up with their own rules for this new, exciting game. The game spread throughout the rest of Chicago, and eventually the whole Midwest was playing softball. In 1934, the Joint Rules Committee on Softball created a full set of standardized rules. Before these rules, every game varied in number of player’s, positions, ball size, field size, and more.
Softball was originally advertised for baseball players to maintain their skills over the off-season. However, it soon became it’s own sport due to the amount of popularity it gained. It was added to the roster of the 1996 Summer Olympics in 1991, which many people saw as the ultimate success for the sport. Although it was dropped from the roster for the 2o12 Summer Olympics, the softball has become one of the most popular sports, not only in the U.S., but Japan, China, and Australia.
Softball is still growing, with new rules are being added and old rules being removed and replaced. Softball is getting more and more attention from the public, as the Women’s Collage World Series is one of the most anticipated of all of collage sports. Today, around 40 million people play softball in the United States alone, while over 65 million people play world-wide.
RELATED STORIES:
https://www.athleticscholarships.net/history-of-softball.htm
https://www.flosoftball.com/articles/6750269-the-history-of-softball-how-did-it-all-get-started
https://www.allaboutfastpitch.com/history-of-softball/
http://archives.sbu.edu/athletics/Softball/History%20of%20Softball.htm
https://www.britannica.com/sports/softball
TAKE ACTION:
https://www.wikihow.com/Play-Softball
https://www.rulesofsport.com/sports/softball.html
https://www.britannica.com/sports/softball
