The CSTV (College Sports Television) cable network gives us two midweek games this week (schedule). Tonight, Utah travels to UNLV in Mountain West Conference action. Then, Wednesday night, we get to see Baylor play at Texas. Baylor certainly is one of the surprise teams -- if not the surprise team -- of the season, sitting atop the Big 12 standings with a perfect 6-0 conference record (Missouri is also undefeated in conference). The Longhorns, in their first post-Cat Osterman season, are in the middle of the pack within the Big 12. See the official Big 12 softball page in the links section on the right.
This Friday (and all remaining Fridays of the regular season), I will preview the upcoming weekend's games. Before doing so, I wanted to do an entry, primarily for sports fans who have not watched much softball, on differences they could expect to see between softball and baseball. The Sandy Plains Softball Association of Marietta, Georgia has produced a document entitled Fastpitch 101 , which details the similarities and differences in the rules of the two sports. Here are some of my own observations from over the years: 1. Because the bases are considerably closer together in softball (60 feet) than in baseball (90 feet), softball infielders consistently must pick up ground balls and make their throws to first base quickly, in order to get the runner. In other words, many (if not most) softball grounders result in "bang-bang" plays at first base, necessitating a lot of close calls by first-base umpires, who must detect whether the thrown ball (to the first-baseperso...