THE GAME
Why should my daughter play fastpitch softball?
To begin with, it’s a fun sport. It’s a fast sport; games last 1 to 2 hours. It’s not like boys’ baseball where games last 3-4 hours. The better the teams, the quicker the game. With fastpitch softball, the more you learn about the game and the more you improve your skills, the more fun it becomes. This sport teaches the importance of teamwork; in fastpitch no one person can carry the team, it’s everyone working together that makes a winning team. This sport improves both mental and physical skills; you end up using every muscle in your body. It improves hand-eye coordination, speeds up reactions and exercises the body. The skills you learn in fastpitch softball can also help you to excel at many other sports. Many girls who play softball also play other sports.
Fastpitch as a spectator
sport
The more you understand about fastpitch softball, the more interesting the
game gets. Like I said, it’s a fast game, usually well under two hours.
The girls’ skills and the coaches' strategies can really make it interesting.
Sometimes you will hear a gasp from the bleachers, as everyone in unison says
or thinks: "Oh, no, coach is not going to do that!" You often meet
people at fastpitch games who have no affiliation with either team; they won’t
know any players, but they love watching the sport.
You will always play ball!
I’m sure you’ve heard: Baseball is the great American pastime.
There’s hardball baseball, fastpitch softball, slowpitch softball, little
league, T-ball, Div-I, Div-III. But in truth, take a bat, ball, bases and
everybody at one time or another gets involved in playing in a ball game.
In physical education classes, at parties, with kids in the neighborhood,
at picnics, at birthdays, family reunions, graduation parties, company picnics;
even senior citizens have their own ball leagues. When’s the last time
you went to an outdoor party or picnic and heard someone say; "Let’s
break out the soccer goals and have a soccer match, or let’s all gear
up and play lacrosse?" You will more typically hear, "Hey, let’s
get a ball game going!" It doesn’t matter if it’s hardball,
softball, rubber ball or wiffle ball. There are ball diamonds all over the
place: parks, playgrounds, schools; sometimes in the middle of nowhere, you
find a ball diamond. Ball is like riding a bicycle: once you learn the game,
you never forget how to do it.
NOTE: I’ll make this statement from personal experience; boys are
very impressed by a girl who can play ball and who knows the rules of the
game.
+
13 YEARS = 
Is playing ball expensive?
No. To start in the sport all you need is a ball and a fairly decent glove.
You don’t have to buy a $100 glove, but on the other hand, don’t
buy a $10 plastic glove either. Find a glove that fits and is comfortable;
grab a ball off the shelf and make sure the player is able to hold the ball
in the glove, squeeze the glove, turn it over and not let the ball drop out.
Cost: $25 - 50; this will last a couple seasons and still be good enough to
pass down to another player.
Do not start out by buying a $200 softball bat (some people do). If you are
just starting in this sport and have signed up for a league, usually the team
will have bats. You will probably want your own inexpensive bat to practice
with. One you can use out in the driveway, in a field or down at the local
park. For this, borrow a bat from a cousin, buy a bat at a garage sale or
flea market ($2- 5) or buy an inexpensive bat at K-Mart, Wal-Mart or Dick’s.
It is just as effective for someone just starting out at any age, from 6 to
15, to buy a plastic bat and a few wiffle balls and swing away. This greatly
improves hand-eye coordination, and teaches a player to judge speeds, heights.
Is it high? Low? Not in the strike zone? The girls or boys learn that the
harder they hit the ball, the further it goes; this develops a faster, harder
swing. Pitch them a hundred or two hundred wiffle balls a night and watch
how they hit in a game! You can do this in your backyard or driveway without
the fear of damaging anything. At times we will use a plastic bat even with
the older or more experienced girls to correct a swing or speed up reaction
time.
Back to the original question: Is playing ball expensive? It depends on how
good you get and how much you want to play. You can start out for well under
$100 a year by joining a town ball league, little league or a recreation league.
It is one of the goals of this site to list the leagues and contact people
in various towns.
She loves playing ball,
and she’s really getting good!
If a girl excels and becomes very good, she could make the all-star team or
the travel team. This may or may not involve more money, but she ends up traveling
to neighboring towns and playing the best they have. This is where a player
really starts learning higher skills; the level of play goes up a couple notches."
We can’t let that neighboring town beat us!" The girls will want
to practice and will ask their parents: will you catch for me? or will you
pitch to me?
If a girl becomes exceptionally
good at fastpitch, people in other towns are talking about her. Coaches hate
it when she gets up to bat; they back the fielders way up. She hits a double,
a triple or a home run every time up.
At this point a girl may want to try out for or may be invited to play on
a local or area travel (select) team. This is good experience; she is now
playing with other players at or above her level; she learns more quickly;
she sees what teams from other towns or other cities are doing. About this
time she starts standing out to the school coaches. Some local school coaches
come to games and tournaments just to see the potential of up-and-coming players
in their school districts. Next year she tries out for school ball -- modified,
freshman, junior varsity or VARSITY -- and the coach says, "wasn’t
that the girl who hit two home runs at the Webster tournament?"
PRE-GAME STRATEGY at Connie Mack.--- 10U PITCHER LETS
ONE FLY
At this level, the expense starts to climb. Most summer travel teams are independent.
They have to pay for insurance, field usage, umpires, and buy uniforms, equipment,
pay tournament entry fees of $200 to $300 per tournament. A girl might be
asked to pay anywhere from $100 to $300 or more to play one summer for a Rochester-area
team. In Pittsburgh, Pa., by comparison, some girls pay $1,000
for a week-long try-out during which they receive daily instruction from college
coaches. At the end of the week, players are selected for the elite travel
teams in several age groups, and those who don’t make the team are refunded
$250.
BUT, those teams emerging from the Pittsburgh process are OUTSTANDING. If
a girl has aspirations of playing in college, select team competition in the
summer is very important. But even with that, when a girl who has been through
the Pittsburgh process or a girl who has played in Arizona and California
(where inter-town competition is at as high a level as can be found at national
qualifiers) is competing with a girl from Rochester, N.Y., does it come as
any surprise to anyone that the Rochester girl is not the one who gets offered
a college athletic scholarship for softball?
Playing summer travel ball for a good team is the best way for a girl to be
challenged. She can see what she still has left to learn. She can see what
the real competition is. And, if she is truly outstanding, she can BE SEEN
by college coaches who come to those tournaments just to watch players from
all over the country. TRAVEL BALL IS WHERE YOU REALLY LEARN TO PLAY BALL.
HOME RUN SWING ABOUT 1/4" TOO LOW
And here is the problem:
At one time there were about a dozen area travel teams, some having teams
for every age level, 12-u to18-u. Now there are only 3 or 4 independent travel
teams or travel organizations and a few town-sponsored travel teams.
There are almost no programs at the youngest level building for the future.
The result is a weakened overall pool of talent for the older-level teams.
Where towns like Chili and Greece used to have hundreds of girls eager to
play softball, now there are only handfuls on a few teams. A common complaint
from girls on high school teams is that they can’t find a decent team
to play on in the summer. One girl, who played JV in the spring, said the
one town team she could find to play on this summer was so bad that she was
sure, "I got worse this summer."
WHAT IS FASTPITCH SOFTBALL?
It's basically baseball played with a different size ball and the distances between bases are different. One of the major differences is the distance from home to the pitcher's mound; it's much shorter, requiring a quicker reaction time for the batter. Like baseball, it’s a foot race and skills contest between one team playing defense and the other playing offense. You can only score points when you are on offense (batting). The faster the race is, the better the skills must be. The quicker the skills and races are, the more exciting the game gets!
The basic game is played
the same as baseball.
The major differences are:
- Distance between bases is 60 feet; in baseball it's 90
- Pitching distance: 10 & 12 year olds - 35 feet
- High School softball - 40 feet; baseball - 60
- College softball - 43 feet
- Men's League - 46 feet
- Can only steal after the ball leaves the pitcher's hand.
- Play with dropped third strike.
- The games are over in half the time of an equivalent age boys' baseball
game.
- The ball has a diameter of 3 3/4" and a circumference of 12 inches.
A baseball is 2 3/4" in diameter and has a circumference of 8 ½".
Oh, yeah, and the ball must be pitched underhand!
