Origins and Development

The first version of softball was invented in Chicago, Illinois in 1887 by George Hancock, a reporter for the Chicago Board of Trade, as a winter version of baseball.

Yale and Harvard alumni had gathered at the Farragut Boat Club in Chicago to hear the score of the annual football game. When the score was announced, one person threw a boxing glove at another. The other person grabbed a stick and swung at it. Hancock took a boxing glove and tied it into a ball. A broom handle was used as a bat. The ball, being soft, was fielded barehanded rather than with gloves like those which had been introduced to baseball in 1882. Hancock developed a ball and an undersized bat in the next week. The Farragut Club soon set rules for the game, which spread quickly to outsiders.

In 1895 Lewis Rober, Sr. of Minneapolis organised outdoor games as exercise for firefighters; this game was known as kitten ball (after the first team to play it) or diamond ball. Rober's version of the game used a twelve-inch (305 mm) ball rather than the sixteen-inch (406 mm) ball used by the Farragut club, and eventually the Minneapolis ball prevailed (although the dimensions of the Minneapolis diamond were passed over in favour of the dimensions of the Chicago one). Rober may not have been familiar with the Farragut Club rules. The first softball league outside the United States was organised in Toronto in 1897.

The softball name dates from 1926 (in addition to indoor baseball, kitten ball, and diamond ball, names for the game included mush ball, and pumpkin ball). Standard rules were agreed on only after the formation of the Amateur Softball Association in 1933.

After World War II, Canadian soldiers introduced softball to The Netherlands.

Women's fast-pitch debuted at the 1996 Summer Olympics.

However, the 117th meeting of the International Olympic Committee, held in Singapore in July 2005, voted to drop Softball and Baseball as Olympic sports for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games.

Sixteen inch (406 mm) circumference softball, also sometimes referred to as "Mush Ball" is a direct descendant of Hancock's original game. Defensive players are not allowed to wear fielding gloves; however, a sixteen inch softball is actually soft, and can be fielded safely with bare hands. Sixteen inch softball is played extensively in Chicago, Illinois.