The History of Softball         

Softball originated in Chicago on Thanksgiving Day, 1887. A group of about twenty young men had gathered in the gymnasium of the Farragut Boat Club in order to hear the outcome of the Harvard-Yale football game. After Yale's victory was announced and bets were paid off, a man picked up a stray boxing glove and threw it at someone, who hit it with a pole. This gave George Hancock, a reporter for the Chicago Board of Trade, an idea. He suggested a game of indoor baseball. Naturally, Hancock's friends thought he was talking about playing a game outdoors, not indoors.

George Hancock the inventor of softball, shouted, "Let's play ball!" He tied the boxing glove so that it resembled a ball, chalked out a diamond on the floor (smaller dimensions than those of a baseball field in order to fit the gym) and broke off a broom handle to serve as a bat. What proceeded was an odd, smaller version of baseball. Significant was that Hancock and his friends had invented a sport that would continue to grow in popularity to where today more than 40 million people enjoy playing it each summer, making softball the No. 1 team participant sport in the United States.  That game is now, 111 years later, known as the first softball game. Softball may have seen its death on the day of its birth if Hancock had not been so fascinated by it. In one week, he created an oversized ball and an undersized rubber-tipped bat and went back to the gym to paint permanent white foul lines on the floor. After he wrote new rules and named the sport indoor baseball, a more organized, yet still new, game was played. Its popularity was immediate.

In the spring of 1888, Hancock's game moved outdoors. It was played on a small diamond and called indoor-outdoor. Due to the sport's mass appeal, Hancock published his first set of indoor-outdoor rules in 1889. Hancock appended 19 special rules to adapt the outdoor game to the indoor game, and the Mid Winter Indoor Baseball League of Chicago officially adopted the rules in 1889.   

While Chicago was definitely softball's birthplace, the game saw some modification in Minneapolis. The year was 1895 when Lewis Rober, Sr., (a fire department officer) needed an activity to keep his men occupied and in shape during their free time. He created his game to fit the confines of a vacant lot next to the firehouse and the result was instantly appealing. Surprisingly, Rober was probably not familiar with Hancock's version of the sport because it was still concentrated in Chicago at that time.   The following year, 1896, Rober was moved to a new unit with a new team to manage. In honor of this group's name, the Kittens, the game was termed Kitten League Ball in 1900. The name was later shortened to “Kitten Ball.”

Rober's game was known as Kitten Ball until 1925, when the Minneapolis Park Board changed it to Diamond Ball, one of a half dozen names used during this time for softball. The name softball didn't come about until 1926 when Walter Hakanson, a Denver YMCA official suggested it to the International Joint Rules Committee. Hakanson had come up with the name in 1926. Efforts to organize softball on a national basis didn't materialize until 1933, when Leo Fischer and Michael J. Pauley, a Chicago Sporting goods salesman, conceived the idea of organizing thousands of local softball teams in America into cohesive state organizations, and state organizations into a national organization.  To bring the teams together, Fischer and Pauley invited them to participate in a tournament in conjunction with the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago. With the backing of the Chicago American newspaper, Pauley and Fischer invited 55 teams to participate in the tournament. Teams were divided into three classes – fast ballers, slow pitch and women. A 14-inch ball was used during the single-elimination event.

 In order to reach the Olympics, the women's sport of softball obviously had to grow greatly from its beginnings. The first women's softball team was formed in 1895 at Chicago's West Division High School. They did not obtain a coach for competitive play until 1899 and it was difficult to create interest among fans. However, only five years later, more attention was given to the women's   game. The Spalding Indoor Baseball Guide 1904 issue fueled this attention by devoting a large section of the guide to the game of women's softball. 

During the 1934 National Recreation Congress, membership on the Joint Rules Committee was expanded to add the Amateur Softball Association (ASA). Until the formation of the ASA, softball was in a state of confusion, especially in the rules area where the length of the bases and pitcher's box were constantly being changed.   The formation of the ASA gave softball the solidarity and foundation it needed to grow and develop throughout the U.S. under the network of associations proposed by Fischer and Pauley. Pauley and Fischer visited many of the states, inviting teams to participate in the tournament. Fischer and his sports promotion director, Harry Wilson, sold the Century of Progress Exposition on the idea of sponsoring the tournament and providing a field inside the Fair Grounds. The American's sports pages promoted the tournament daily and Chicago businessmen raised $500 to finance the event.

The Chicago National Tournament in 1933 also advanced the sport.  It was said, "It is the largest and most comprehensive tournament ever held in the sport which has swept the country like wildfire." With admission free, 70,000 people saw the first round of play. Chicago teams won the three divisions of play with Softball Hall of Famer Harry (Coon) Rosen leading the J.L. Friedman Boosters to the men's title, one-hitting Briggs Beautyware of Detroit, MI, in the finals. It was the first loss of the season for Briggs after 41 consecutive wins.  At this competition, the male and female champions were honored equally.

It was evident that softball finally had a foundation from which to grow, and, in 1935, the Playground Association Softball Guide, wrote: "the years of persistent effort, constant promotion and unchanging faith of believers in softball proved to have not been in vain, for in 1934 softball came into its own.

The International Softball World Championships in 1965 developed women's softball by making it an international game, a step towards the Pan-American Games and the Olympics. Eleven years later, women softball players were given the closest equivalent to Major League Baseball with the 1976 formation of the International Women's Professional Softball League. Player contracts ranged from $1,000 to $3,000 per year, but the league disbanded in 1980 because of financial ruin.  Vicki Schneider, a St. Louis Softball Hall of Famer and former professional player, recalls this league as being the high point of her career (Schneider).

The popularity of women's fast pitch softball has grown steadily since the professional league's end in 1980. In fact, once again, there is another professional fast pitch league called the NPF (National Pro Fast pitch League). The Amateur Softball Association reports that it "annually registers over 260,000 teams combining to form a membership of more than 4.5 million" (About the ASA). These numbers do not all apply to fast pitch, yet it is consistently growing along with slow pitch. All over America hundreds of leagues and thousands of players enthusiastically accepted this major team game and Softball became one of America's favorite sports.

The History of College Softball

The NCAA softball championship (Women's College World Series) was first held in 1982. Softball is one of only 2 sports in the NCAA that are exclusive to women the other is Field Hockey.  The NCAA Division II and Division III championships also began in 1982.

The college softball championship begins with 32 teams from 8 regions competing in a double-elimination round. The eight winners then enter a double-elimination, round robin tournament to determine the national champion.

From 1982 through 1987, the championship final was held in Omaha, Nebraska, the home of the men's College World Series. It them moved to Sunnyvale, California, for two years. Since 1990, the finals have been played at the Amateur Softball Association's Hall of Fame Field in Oklahoma City.

More than 600 NCAA member colleges sponsor women's softball programs, and national championships for women are held in all three NCAA sports divisions (divisions I, II, and III). Women's fast-pitch softball was first played as a medal sport at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia.