1 The Focus Is on Females Almost all sports are played by both men and women But softball is played mostly by girls Why In 1972 Title IX became law It stated that the government had to give schools the same amount of money for boys and girls sports Baseball and softball were a lot alike so most schools 4 created softball leagues for girls and baseball leagues for boys Many people believe that teenage girls cannot compete against boys for spots on a baseball team because most boys are physically stronger than girls Softball is a sport where girls can compete against each other
Years ago there were some baseball teams for girls However there was not much interest from fans As men’s baseball became popular women turned to softball instead Girls professional baseball teams played 1943 1954 THINK ABOUT IT Do you think it’s fair that softball is thought of as a girls sport 9.59 Number in millions of Americans who played softball regularly in 2017 In 2012 there were more than 245,000 softball teams in the US That year more than one million girls played on softball teams Statistics say that up to 40 million adults play at least one game a year 5
The Sport Had an Unusual Beginning 2 The Chicago softball team 1897 Softball began because of a football game In 1887 fans in Chicago were waiting for the results of a football game between Yale and Harvard Universities When they heard that Yale won 17 8 a Yale fan got so excited that he threw a boxing glove 6 at a Harvard fan The Harvard fan happened to be holding a broomstick He swung at the boxing glove and hit it A man named George Hancock organized the young men into two teams They played a kind of indoor baseball game with the glove and stick The final
Brown leather baseball from the 1950s 1926 The year the game was first called softball The name was chosen at a meeting of the National Recreation Congress Before that the sport was called diamond ball or indoor baseball The game spread to other countries in the 1950s score was 41 40 Softball was born over Chicago Then it spread to other parts of the country At first softball became popular because it could be played indoors during the winter But when spring came the game moved outside Softball became popular all In the early days only men played softball Sometimes there were mixed teams of men and women It was only later that softball became a sport mostly played by girls Morrin Fliers girls softball team 1933 7
