I hope you enjoyed some of the fictional tales I wove in recent weeks thanks to inspiration from my students. If you have an idea you’d like me to tackle with a first and last line of a story, let me know! You can email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., send me a message on Twitter @MrD1973, or let the fine folks at the newspaper know. Now, back to summer!
I admit, when I was younger, I thought softball was a joke. After all, how hard could it be to hit that huge ball?
Now hitting a baseball, that’s a tough thing to do! And I grew up in baseball-crazy New Ulm, so there really was no argument, at least until the area softball teams started doing really well. My alma mater, New Ulm Cathedral, has been to the state softball tournament more often than the baseball tournament. In recent years, the public school in New Ulm has also been a force in softball after many years of baseball dominance.
And as Jayna has progressed through her years of softball, I have gained an especial appreciation for the sport that’s more than just “the girls’ version of baseball.”
Granted, the younger years of either sport can be painful to watch. Many kids can’t throw a ball very well or hit a ball very well or catch a ball very well. And it doesn’t matter if it’s the big yellow ball or the small white one. In theory, the baseball should be easier to catch since it’s less likely to pop out of your glove. In theory, the softball should be easier to hit since it has a larger surface area on which to put a bat. In theory, the baseball should be easier to throw since your hand can fit around it better.
Theories don’t always get proven though. As I’ve watched kids from t-ball to coach pitch to pitching machine to live pitching, I’ve seen that those theories don’t always hold much water. It’s really about the effort the individual child puts into becoming skilled in throwing, catching, and hitting.
Here’s one advantage softball tends to have over baseball: the speed of the game. If you have a solid pitcher for softball, you can get a seven-inning game done in a little over an hour. Even with a good pitcher in baseball, you’re much more likely to be out there for two hours.
And then there’s the overall speed associated with playing softball. With only sixty feet between bases, players must be quicker, both in fielding and baserunning, than their counterparts in baseball who look at ninety feet between bases. I’ve seen some fast baseball players, but our current softball team at NRHEG has the quickest overall group of athletes I’ve ever seen on a diamond. That’s honed through both natural ability and the necessity to get quicker to play the game at a high level.
Don’t get me wrong – I’ll always love baseball! There is something about the slower nature of the game that is appealing. As a coach, I still have to make quick decisions, but usually a coach has a little time to think and react. There is no clock, and most pitchers don’t get right back to the mound to throw, so you can decide to bunt or steal or hit and run in a more deliberate way. Softball pitchers seem to get to work much more quickly. And they can, since their runners can’t leave until they release the ball.
Umpiring is very different for each sport. Sure, the strike zone is the same, but the lack of the pages and pages of pitching rules associated with baseball makes umpiring softball less about all the minutiae that comes with baseball and more about the pure aspects of hitting and fielding and throwing a ball.
This summer, my own kids played on opposite nights, which meant that Michelle and I were on ballfields four nights a week, and sometimes on weekends. And if you go back to school ball, I’m very sure that, once games actually started in April, we spent more days watching ball than not. And it was marvelous! Sure, there are nights where you wish you could just sit at home for once, but now that the ball seasons are done, we’ll quickly get to the point where we’ll look forward to another sports season.
I love watching my kids and their teammates grow and get better. Being on a field, whether it’s coaching, umpiring, or being a parent, is one of life’s great pleasures. And it doesn’t really matter to me which ball they use. The big yellow one and the small white one both make me happy when I see kids playing outside and enjoying themselves.
I wish more would play. I’ve written before about a decline in numbers for these sports. Everyone is so “busy” that baseball and softball tend to be easy things to cut loose. I enjoy other sports too, but there’s something about sitting outside on a summer evening watching a ballgame that can’t be replicated by any sport in a gym. It’s just too bad that more kids aren’t hearing the words “Play ball!” more often, no matter how long it is between bases for them.
Word of the Week: This week’s word is sapid, which means lively or interesting, as in, “The sapid discussion on whether baseball or softball was more difficult to play ended in both parties agreeing the games were fun and that was all that mattered.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!