Here's some summer reading for college softball fans! It's the story of the short-lived Kennedy College of Wahoo, Nebraska, which not only fielded a successful women's softball team but was also instrumental in the creation of a Women's College World Series. The article from the Lincoln Journal Star is available here. Thanks to Merritt Clifton, whose message to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) e-mail discussion group brought the Kennedy College story to my attention.
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...