There is no major tournament this weekend attracting a large number of the nation's top-ranked teams. Instead, there are a lot of smaller tournaments. One match-up that has great personal interest for me is UCLA vs. Michigan in the Disney/Wide World of Sports tournament in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The Bruins and Wolverines are just getting underway now, late Friday afternoon. UCLA is where I received my bachelor's degree and Michigan, where I obtained my Ph.D. Both teams currently are ranked in the mid-teens nationally, a far cry from 2005 when UCLA and Michigan played a classic three-game final round in the Women's College World Series (won by the Wolverines, thanks to Samantha Findlay's three-run blast in the top of the 10th inning of Game 3).
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...