No. 2 UCLA headlines the field at this year's Judi Garman Classic, as the Bruins (17-1) look to bounce back from their 14-0 shellacking at the hands of Oklahoma last Sunday. The only other Top 25 teams in the ESPN.com/USA Softball poll traveling to Fullerton, California for the Garman Classic are No. 15 LSU and No. 20 Oregon. The other squads in the 12-team field are Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Cal State Fullerton, Central Florida, Fresno St., Loyola Marymount, Michigan, Minnesota, San Jose St., and Seattle. Each team will play five games in the tournament.
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...