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| It is a week for the college fastpitch player to count her blessings, not the least of which is the wonderful game of softball played for the first time 129 years ago on Thanksgiving Day!
Left-to-right, TOP ROW: Wesley Wolverines freshman #16 C/INF
Autumn Walinski (Fallston, MD), sophomore #13 Utility Ashley Royer (Lititz, PA), freshman #11 catcher Alyssa Zimmerman (Hagerstown, MD), sophomore #8 OF Megan DiRubbio (Smyrna, DE), junior #99 OF Lauren Hoffman (Middletown, DE), freshman #11 C Alyssa Zimmerman (Hagerstown, MD), junior #4 MI/OF Samantha Burns (Magnolia, DE), freshman #2 3B/SS Karina Cardona (Cooper City, FL); BOTTOM ROW: senior #12 P Lindsay Siok (Milford, DE), senior #9 P/OF Lily Engel (Dover, DE), senior #42 INF Devin Mackay (Bangor, PA), senior #17 OF Casey Beall (Severn, MD), senior #18 C Nina Marcano (Middletown, DE). Not pictured, two-sport athlete: freshman #6 P/UT Allison Mills (Leonardtown, MD).
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How a boxing glove started it all!
Game of softball born
on Thanksgiving Day!
The first game of what would become the sport of softball was played 128 years ago on Thanksgiving Day, 1887.
This Thanksgiving Day "softball" game actually was a hastily configured baseball contest, which pitted Yale versus Harvard alumni inside Chicago's Farragut Boat Club.
1887: HOW IT HAPPENED…
A Yale alumnus mischievously threw a boxing glove at a Harvard buddy just after a telegram arrived announcing that Yale had bested Harvard in the annual holiday football game. The Harvard fellow grabbed a broom handle and swung at the boxing glove, while reporter George Hancock, who was part of the group, yelled out “Play ball!”
Suddenly a new game was born with Hancock even writing down the day's rules for posterity.
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| George Hancock and Chicago's Farragut Boat Club, 1887 |
1889: OUTDOOR FIELD...
In 1889 the game moved outdoors. Minneapolis fireman Lewis Rober marked up the first field and set seven innings as the game's official length.
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First photo of a softball team, Chicago, 1897 |
By this time, the ball had become a small medicine ball -- 16 inches in circumference -- with a bat two inches thick! Rober changed that. His version of the contest used a ball that was more modern in appearance, now 12 inches wide.
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Louis Rober's team named “The Kittens” that kept a Minneapolis fire company crew in top fit shape. |
These games, whether played with a 16" 0r 12" ball were known variously as “indoor baseball”, “cabbage ball”, “mush ball”, “kitten ball”, “pumpkin ball”, “diamond ball”, etc. They began to draw as many as 3,000 fans.
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| The early game was played indoors and outdoors with a ball the size of a small medicine ball and a bat two inches thick. |
1895: WOMEN ENTER THE GAME
The first women’s "softball" team (still termed "kitten ball" or“girls' indoor base-ball”) was formed at Chicago’s West Division High School. The young ladies were not able to play competitively until 1899 when they finally hired a coach. They eventually claimed the Cook County championship!
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First women’s softball team, West Division High School, Chicago, circa 1900. |
1926: SOFTBALL GETS ITS NAME...
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An old 16 inch ball |
1931: FIRST TRAVEL TEAM...
The first travel team formed in 1931. It was a squad entirely of men, 75 years-of-age and older, taking the field in business-suit-like uniforms (wearing ties and bowties), who called themselves Kids and Kubs.
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| Kids and Kubs, St. Petersburg, FL, 1933 |
1933: ASA FORMED…
Newspaper reporter Leo Fischer and sporting goods salesman Michael Pauley brought the game to the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, where 55 teams participated before 350,000 fans who watched different contests of men's and women's slow and fastpitch.
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Quaskies Kittenball Team of Quasqueton, Iowa, 1934 |
The ASA – Amateur Softball Association – was founded that fall (1933) by Fischer and Pauley. Softball had arrived!
SOFTBALL 2016: Today, ASA registers over 245,000 softball teams, embracing more than 3.5 million softball players around the country.
