What is Baseball/Softball?
Baseball and softball are two related ball sports played between two teams on a diamond-shaped field.
What's the difference between Baseball and Softball?
While there are world championships for both men and women in both sports, at the Olympic level baseball has been a men's-only sport while softball has been a women's-only sport. There are differences in the number of players on each team between the two sports, the size of the field, and in some rules.
Softball pitchers are also required to throw underhand, and most pitchers throw using the windmill pitch style, where the ball is thrown after rotating in a large circle. In softball, top female pitchers can reach speeds of over 100km/h. That speed fits with the fast-paced nature of the game. Since the bases aren’t as far apart, there is a shorter pitching distance. The game is also shorter in duration to baseball, with only seven innings compared to baseball’s nine.
By whom, where and when was Baseball/Softball invented?
The earliest record of the game of "baseball" being played was in Surrey, England, in 1749. The sport made it to the United States by the 1770s, and the first organised professional league—the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players—was founded in 1875. Baseball is considered "America's past-time".
Softball was first imagined as “indoor baseball” in 1887 in Chicago, Illinois, by reporter George Hancock after watching someone hit a boxing glove with a broom handle. He went on to publish rules for the game and later took it outside, playing on fields too small for baseball. While the rules remained vague, interest in the game grew, and more than 100 area high school teams were formed by 1892.
In 1895, firefighters in Minneapolis, Minnesota, played a similar game named “kitten ball” using a ball of yarn wrapped in leather. In 1907, a guide for indoor baseball published by Albert Spalding allowed for game flexibility with two constants: a larger ball than baseball as well as underhand pitching. In 1926, Walter Hakanson proposed unifying the disparate versions of the game into one, under a single name: Softball.
What are the rules of Baseball/Softball?
Two teams of nine players aim to score the most runs by striking a ball and running round a sequence of bases to reach the home plate.
The teams rotate between batting and fielding, with each session called an inning, and switch when the fielding team gets three opposition players out.
The pitcher throws the ball from a mound toward the catcher which the batter attempts to hit and get around the bases to the home plate.
Softball is similar but features 9 or 10 players per team, depending on the style being played. The basic rules are the same.
How long is a Baseball/Softball game?
A baseball game lasts for nine innings, while softball lasts for seven innings. There are three outs per half-inning (teams rotate batting and fielding each half-inning). Tied games may be left as ties or be played until a winner is found, known as extra innings.
Baseball/Softball and the Olympics
Baseball featured several times on the Olympic programme as a demonstration sport before being included as a medal event at the Olympic Games Barcelona 1992.
Cuba won the gold medal on the sport’s competitive debut and three times in total before it was removed from the programme following the Olympic Games Beijing 2008.
Softball was introduced at the Olympic Games Atlanta 1996 as a women-only medal sport, with the United States winning the sport’s inaugural gold medal. They won the subsequent two titles and enjoyed a 22-game winning streak from September 2000 before they were beaten by Japan in the final in 2008.
Originally considered separate sports at the Olympics, baseball softball made its return as a combined sport with two distinct events (men's baseball and women's softball) at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, where hosts Japan won both gold medals.
Best Baseball/Softball players to watch
Japan's Ohtani Shohei is one of the world's biggest baseball stars, as he is what is known as a "two-way" player—someone who both hits and pitches extremely well. In softball, Team USA's Ally Carda is one to watch.
