Softball

The softball (in Quebec, the ball-soft ) is a sport of team practiced by two teams of 9 players alternating between the attack and defense. The goal of the play is to advance the runners around four bases to the marble and to mark the most possible points. This sport is downward direct Baseball (sometimes invited hardball in order to differentiate both) but differs from this last by various aspects whose the four principal ones are:

  • the ball is always launched by lower part, when the arm under the hip and is tended whereas to baseball, the ball can be launched in any position.

  • the ball is larger, and contrary to the name, is quite as hard as that of baseball.
  • the ground is smaller.
  • the play is more tactical.

The softball is practiced by the two sexes in way amateur or competitive. It is an Olympic sport for the women only. The International federation of softball organizes Championships of the world in several categories. They are held every four years but in different years for each category.

History

The softball appeared for the first time in 1917. It is one to defer of Chicago, George Hancock who invented this discipline having for goal to allow to play baseball the winter in room. As from the spring of the following year, in 1918, the discipline started to be practiced in outside.

It will have to be waited until 1921 before the sport takes the name of softball. From 1933 a championship was organized by the “Amateur Softball Association off America (ASAA)”. The sport in the beginning was only played by men and it is with the formation of the ASAA that the women started to play there.

The softball remained confined for a long time in the United States. It is with the Second world war that the American soldiers exported the sport. The softball is open and proposes two different disciplines to make it possible to be played by the greatest possible number of people: the “fastpitch” (fast ball), the “slowpitch” (slow ball).

On the international scene the “fastpitch” is the discipline most played by the women but the play is also opened to the men and a variation of the sport authorizes even the sport into mixed. The “slowpitch” remaining the discipline most played in leagues amateurs and this for the men, the women and into mixed.

The first championship of the world of “fastpitch” appeared in 1965 for the women and 1966 for the men. It is in 1987 that the slowpitch acquired to him also its championship of the world.

Simple: Softball

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