Softball vs. Baseball

I love softball which is why I chose to do this topic. Cat Osterman is a softball pitcher. I wanted to compare softball and baseball. How its different. Why one sports for women, and the other for men. In order for me to do this I have found two sources that have helped me with my comparison. baseball-fever.com and bellaonline.com. These websites have helped a lot and explains the differences and how softball came to be.

  This article baseball-fever.com,explains how women's sports is an evolution. It talks about how it was invented. " Softball was originally invented as an indoor winter game by men looking to train during the off-season." So even though softball is a women's sport. Softball was invented by men. A boating club, a boxing glove and a football game were a key part in the very first game of softball. The boating glove as the bat. A boxing glove for a glove or catching glove. "Softball was first introduced on Thanksgiving Day in 1887 at a Harvard-Yale football game. A man from Yale playfully threw a boxing glove at the Harvard grads after the game was done and bets were paid. A fan from Harvard hit the glove away with a broom handle. A game of indoor baseball commenced as a result."

Speed is a great comparison between softball and baseball. " How do the announcers arrive at that comparison and are they accurate?" This article will aim to answer both of these questions. When comparing softball pitching to baseball pitching ,it is the batters reaction time that has to be determinants. The reaction time comes from the fact that  "distance = rate x Time". Overall after researching the speeds of softball and baseball. Baseball has much faster speeds for pitching. At 70 mph and a reaction time of 0.360(s) for softball, 101.2(mph) is the equivalent to the pitch of baseball. Where 50(mph) with a reaction time of 0.505 for softball, 72.3(mph) is the equivalent for baseball. The guys that record how fast the pitch goes uses something called a radar gun. "Most radar guns that are used measure the ball speed as it leaves the pitchers hand.....therefore the Baseball pitching distance is 53.5 feet and a ball has to go 86.8(mph) to cover that distance in 0.42 seconds.

Bellow is a chart to help show the comparison of softball speeds to baseball speeds.




http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art63765.asp




http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Cat+Osterman&f=hp