Talk:Softball

Could someone rewrite the intro from a non-US POV? I don't know a thing about baseball, so saying softball is like baseball except x, y and z is a very poor introduction to the sport for me. Fabiform 15:29, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I think this was written from an Australian POV to begin with, and now it's written from an Australian-Canadian one. I've defined a few of the terms, but writing an extensive article would require too much time at the moment. You can get a pretty good idea of the sport by reading about baseball first. Trontonian 14:29, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Well I told you I didn't know anything about softball, so here are questions I have which this article doesn't answer. (Marvel at my lack of knowledge!)

• "softball is a team sport in which the object is to score runs by advancing around a circuit of four bases"
  • I'm assuming two teams of how many people?
  • it's a bat & ball game, right?, what kind of bat, what's the ball made of (is it really soft?)
  • who advances around the bases (the batter?, and under what circumstances?)
  • do the four bases include where the batter stands?
  • what is the plate?
  • what do players wear (padding?), do they all play in one colour (like cricket whites) or does each team have distinctive colourful strips, different colours for home/away, and do they wear shorts, or tight trousers/pants, hats?
  • the two teams are fielders and batters? and there's a bowler?...
• "The infield is a sixty-foot square with bases at each corner"
  • but it's called a diamond (is that the correct term?)
  • I see the question of how many bases there are is answered later
  • the catcher is from the fielders team, and the bowler/pitcher?
  • I got lost in the detailed description of the field. We need a diagram!
  • nice explanation of innings, so every member of each team gets to bat until they are somehow caught out, then you do that all 6 more times, how long do these games last?
  • I got lost again in the detailed description of gameplay. I think this needs to be a section by itself with a snappy intro, I was plunged into the details a bit too quickly. How is a batter caught out exactly, and is that what you call it (to be caught out)?
  • umpires... do they have special clothes, a whistle, red and yellow cards, hand signals, etc? do they send people off (and do you go back to the pavillion, the benches, etc?)
  • what might a typical score in a game be? (2-0), (23-12), (165-98)? How are points awarded? What's nought called (nil, love, etc?)
  • can you run round all the bases at once, or do you have to do it one base per pitch? Is there a special name for running round them all in one go (a home run?)
  • is this played on grass/dirt/what?
  • the history section looks good to me :)
  • are there big world championships/competitions? Which are the most famous teams/players, from which countries?

I think that'll do for now. I hope you find my novice questions useful.  :)
Fabiform 04:05, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)

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I suspect the softball rover article could really be merged/redirred to here, but I know so little about the topic I'm not 100% certain. Niteowlneils 01:10, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

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"the ball is larger, softer, and less dense than a baseball"

Is the softball actually softer than the ball used in baseball? A common misconception among non-softball people is that the ball is "soft", and perhaps squishy, almost like a tennis ball or something, however the softball itself is rather hard. If you get hit by it, it hurts a lot. --Sonjaaa 10:18, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC)

Softball history in the Olympics

When was the game of Softball first introduced into the Olympic Games?