Essay on SoftBall Vs. Baseball: What’s the Difference

📌Category: Sports, Sports games
📌Words: 720
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 28 April 2021

Most people think that softball and baseball are the same sport, but they are not! Softball and baseball have the same goal and some of the same rules, but they have a different tone and some rules that are different. Softball has two different types of games, slow pitch and fast pitch, which are unalike. Baseball is a fast paced game. 

Just because the game of softball and baseball has the same objective. It does not mean that it is the same sport. Softball and baseball are actually different, once you get down to the techniques. You have the same equipment but the rules and the layouts are not the same to each other. They both, fastpitch softball and baseball have nine players on the field and has the same positions. Slow pitch softball has ten players. The infield has the same positions like fast pitch and baseball, but has four outfielders.

The objective of both sports is to score the most points. The players in the field are playing defense, while the players batting are playing offense. While playing defense, once you get three outs you switch to batting, then while playing offense, players try to get around the bases to home plate, to score a point. 

Batting is different for many reasons, including the weight of the bat to the throw of the pitch. In softball, both slow and fast pitch, you are required to have a facemask on while batting unless you are in the professional leagues. Baseball, even in little league, does not require a facemask while batting. Butting is allowed in fast pitch and baseball, but not allowed in slow pitch. If contact is made in slow pitch the batter is automatically out. The bats are also different weights. Softball bats weigh usually around twenty-six to thirty ounces while baseball bats weigh thirty-three to thirty-four ounces.

The pitchers are standing at different feet in both sports. A fast pitch softball mound is forty-three feet away from home plate, ground level, while a slow pitch is also ground level, but is forty-six feet away from home plate. (Brenner 2015) In baseball the mound is sixty feet, elevated. (Brenner 2015) In softball you can throw a rise ball which is pitch in baseball that you usually do not see. Baseball pitchers throw overhand while softball throw underhand.

The difference between fast pitch and slow pitch pitches are that in fast pitch you make a complete circle with your arm, slow pitch you do a half circle. Also, in fast pitch softball you have a full circle of chalk around the pitchers mound. In slow pitch softball there is no chalk circle. The chalk circle in fast pitch is to tell whether the pitcher is in the pitchers mound to call time, so base runners can’t steal. In slow pitch, baserunners can’t steal so there is no need for a circle. 

Some rules are similar but has unique things about them that makes them like a new rule. Taking a lead from the base is something that is in both fast pitch softball and baseball, but in fast pitch you have to wait until the ball leaves the pitchers hand before you can leave the base or you are out. In baseball you can leave the base even when the ball is in the pitchers hand getting ready to throw the pitch. In slow pitch softball you cannot lead off or steal. Leading off helps baserunners steal bases. Softball has seven innings, and is about one or two hours to whereas baseball has 9 innings, and is about two and a half to three hours. (Mann 2011)

The field layout also differentiates in both sports. In both, slow pitch and fast pitch softball, the bases are sixty feet apart as in baseball that are ninety feet apart. (Brenner 2015) Baseball fields are a minimum two hundred fifty feet in distance and a minimum distance of three hundred twenty feet at the foul poles and four hundred feet in center field. In softball are a minimum distance two hundred twenty-five feet in distance and one hundred ninety feet at the foul poles. In softball the backstop to home plate is twenty-five to thirty feet where as in baseball it is sixty feet. (Brenner 2015)

So as for many people that think that softball and baseball are alike, they have different things about them that makes them two different sports. Baseball is fast paced, different rules and field layout. Fast pitch softball has also fast paced, but has different layout and measurements. Slow pitch is the most different out of both of them, with the number of players to the batting rules.

 

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