HISTORY OF

SOFTBALL
SOFTBALL BEGINNINGS
Softball was created inside the
Farragut Boat Club on a
wintry, blustery day in
November, 1887, in
Chicago, IL. A group of
Harvard and Yale alumni
anxiously awaited the results
of the Yale-Harvard football
game, and when the news
came through that Yale had
defeated Harvard, 17-8, one
Yale supporter, overcome with
emotion, picked up an The first known
discarded boxing glove and
threw it at a nearby Harvard
softball team
alumni, who promptly tried to
hit it back with a stick.
SOFTBALL BEGINNINGS
This gave George Hancock, a reporter
for the Chicago Board of Trade, an idea.
He suggested a game of indoor baseball.
Naturally, Hancock’s friends thought he
was talking about playing a game
outdoors, not indoors.

Using what was available, he tied

together the laces of the boxing glove for
a ball. Hancock marked off a home plate,
bases and a pitcher’s box inside the
Farragut Boat Club gymnasium and then
divided the 2 groups divided into teams.
The final score of the game was 41-40,
but what was significant was that
Hancock and his friends had invented a
sport that would continue to grow in
popularity to where today more than forty
million people play it each summer.
George
Hancock
SOFTBALL BEGINNINGS
Softball is now the No. one team participant sport in
the USA. Hancock’s game eventually caught on in
Chicago with the Farragut team challenging other
gymnasiums to matches. In the spring, Hancock took
his game outdoors and played it on fields not large
enough for baseball. It was called indoor-outdoor and
Hancock emerged as the recognized authority in the
19th century.
Hancock devised nineteen special rules to adapt the
outdoor game to the indoor format, and the rules
were officially adopted by the Mid Winter Indoor
Baseball League of Chicago in 1889.
SOFTBALL BEGINNINGS
Hancock’s game gradually spread
throughout the country and
ultimately flourished in Minneapolis,
thanks to the ingenuity and efforts
of Lewis Rober, a Minneapolis
Fire Department lieutenant, who
wanted a game to keep his firemen
fit during their idle time.
They used a vacant lot beside to the
fire-station, Rober laid out bases
with a pitching distance of 35 feet.
His ball was a small sized medicine
ball with the bat two inches in Lewis Rober
diameter.
SOFTBALL BEGINNINGS
The game became popular almost
overnight and other fire
companies began to play. In 1895,
Rober transferred to another fire
company and organized a team
he called the Kittens. George
Kehoe, captain of Truck
Company No. one, named
Rober’s version of softball
“Kitten League Ball” in the
summer of 1900. It was later
shortened to “Kitten Ball.”

Finally, in 1933, softball became

a national sports and was called
softball.
George Kehoe
WHAT IS SOFTBALL?
WHAT IS SOFTBALL?

Requires nine players on a team.

Each teams assigns a player to a certain
defence position.
These players are: pitcher, catcher, first
baseman, second baseman, third
baseman, shorstsop, left fielder, center
fielder, and right fielder.
WHAT IS SOFTBALL?
The players are
stationed on a
playing field which
has a clear and
unobstructed area
within a radius of
“200 feet” from
home plate and
tries to hit a ball
which delivered by Softball playing
the pitcher. field
WHAT IS SOFTBALL?
If the batter succeeds, he tries to reach
first base and eventually advance around
the diamond until he returns to home
plate.
The players in the field try to prevent
runners from scoring. Each time a runner
crosses home plate a run is scored.
The team with the most runs is the
winner.
 Softball (another
definition)

Is a team sports for two teams in which

the object is to score runs by advancing
around a circuit of four bases.
It is a direct descendant of baseball
(sometimes referred to as “hardball” to
differentiate the two).
Chief three difference between
baseball and softball

1. The ball is always pitched

(thrown to the batter) underarm
2. The ball is larger, softer, and less
dense than a baseball
3. The playing field is normally
smaller
Softball is the most popular participant sport in
the United States. An estimated “56 million
Americans” will play at least one game of softball
during a year.
It is played by both genders socially as well as
competitively.
Is an Olympic sport for women.
The International Softball Federation holds
world championships in several categories.
The championships are held every “four years”
but in different years for each category.