The 2014 college softball season is now underway, with a variety of weekend tournaments going on. Most years, the Kajikawa Classic at Arizona State is the premier opening-weekend event. However, this year's field looks weaker than those of earlier years. This weekend's marquee event, instead, is probably the Wilson-DeMarini tourney at the University of South Florida. This tournament includes a Saturday match-up of No. 3/4 Florida against No. 4/5 Michigan.
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...