The History of Softball

The History of Softball

Softball is arguably one of the most popular sports in the world today. The fact that 25-40 million people in the United States play this and that it became an event in the Olympics in 1996 is enough proof of its popularity.

The Early Days

But before it became popular, its first game was only played by several young men in 1887. While waiting for the result of a football game between Yale and Harvard, one of these men picked up and threw a stray boxing glove at someone who hit it with a pole.

This prompted George Hancock – considered as the inventor of the game – to tie the glove and turn into a ball, and turn the handle of a broomstick into a bat and shout, “let’s play ball!”

The score of the first game? A whopping 41-40.

Hancock eventually refined the game, replacing the boxing glove with an oversized ball, the broomstick handle into a rubber-tipped bat, and write rules for the game. It was originally called ‘indoor baseball’ because unlike today’s softball, it was played, you guessed it, indoors.

In Minneapolis in 1895, Lewis Rober, Sr., a fire department officer, was looking for a way to keep his men active during their free time. So devised a game similar to what Hancock developed several years earlier. The game was called kitten ball in honor of the team that first played it.

The Development of Softball

The game wasn’t called softball until 1926 when it was coined by Walter Hakanson of YMCA at a meeting of the National Recreation Congress. The term was slow to be picked up by others, though. It was only in 1930 before the game in its present name became popular in the United States.

And because the game was still pretty much in its infancy during the time, different areas and leagues had different rules of playing the game. In 1934, the Joint Rules Committee on Softball was formed and the rules and naming became standardized.

Recent History

In 1951, the International Softball Federation began governing all softball competitions throughout the world. The first women’s fastpitch world championships were held in Australia in 1965. The men’s championships were held a year later. Since 1970, the world championships have been played every four years.

It can be considered that softball reached the peak of its popularity in 1996 when it became an Olympic medal event. Although the International Olympic Committee decided to drop the game from the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in a 2005 meeting, the sport remains popular particularly in the United States.

Softball’s popularity can be credited to its appeal to players of different ages who play in particular age groups. And you can expect to see maintain its mass appeal for the years to come. Not bad for a sport that began as an impromptu game using a broomstick handle and a boxing glove. And not bad for a game that was once called odd names such as ‘kitten ball’, ‘cabbage ball’ and ‘cabbage ball’.