Getting to know it better…
History
Player Positions
Skills
Equipment
Rules and Regulations
References
Analysis
Reflections
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
The game of 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.
George Hancock, usually considered 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. 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.
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SOFTBALL PLAYER POSITIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Pitcher Throws the softball from the center of the diamond (pitcher's mound) to the
catcher. The pitcher uses an underarm motion to pitch the ball toward the "strike
zone". After making a pitch, the pitcher gets ready to field balls hit up the middle.
Catcher Plays in a semi-crouched position behind home plate and receives pitches thrown by
the pitcher. Also receives throws from fielders attempting to make outs at home plate.
First Baseman
Positioned just to the left of the first base. Her main role is to make fielding plays on balls hit
toward first base.
Second Baseman
Plays in the gap between the bag at second and the first baseman. Receives throws from
fielders attempting to make outs at 2nd base and fields “grounders” and “pop ups” hit to this
side of the infield.
Shortstop
Fields the balls hit to the infield between second and third base. She covers second base
(along with the second baseman) and is often involved in force plays and “double plays” with
the second baseman.
Third Baseman Plays to the left of third base and covers any plays there. Receives throws
from other fielders attempting to make outs at 3rd base.
Outfielders (Left, Right, and Center) Positioned beyond the infield, they catch and field “fly
balls,” line drives, and ground balls hit into the outfield.
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Softball Skills
Pitching
Throwing
Batting
Fielding
Base Running
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Equipment
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Softball Rules and Regulations
Softball rules and positions are very easy to understand. The game of softball is
very similar to the game of baseball, hence there are a lot of similarities between
softball rules and baseball rules.
Field of Play
•Similar to baseball, there are 9 players in each team. This number can actually
vary between 9 and 12 (depending on the level of the league that the game is being
played in), but in most cases there will be only 9 players on each side.
•The field of play is divided into two main parts - the infield and the outfield.
•The pitcher is required to pitch the ball from the pitchers mound which is located at
the center of the diamond. (inside the infield area)
•When both teams have finished batting, it is known as an inning. In an official game
there are a total of 7 innings.
•There are 4 bases, and the distance between each base is 60 feet. These 4 bases
are diamond shaped and the area between the bases is known as the infield. The
area outside the diamond area is the outfield area.
Rules of Batting
The order in which the batters have been placed initially is the order in which they
must bat throughout the 7 innings of the game.
The batter will be out if there are 3 strikes against him. A pitch is counted as a strike
if the batter misses the ball completely and the catcher positioned behind the batter
catches the ball.
A batter will also be deemed out if a high ball hit by him is caught by a player from the
fielding team before it touches the ground (this is known as a fly ball).
Rules of Pitching
Unlike baseball, the ball has to be pitched underhand in the sport of softball.
Before pitching the ball, both the pitchers hands must be on the ball.
The pitcher must keep both his feet firmly planted on the pitchers plate, and while
pitching the ball, he must take one step forward.
Running Bases
Each base must be touched by a base runner in the correct order.
A base runner cannot pass another base runner who is in front of him. He must stay
at least one base behind him at all times.
The runner has to be on a base until the ball leaves the pitchers hand. Leading off the
bases is not permitted under any circumstances.
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References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softball
http://www.eastbay.com/promotion/promoId:5004357/softball/
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/softball-rules-and-regulations.html
http://www.ehow.com/about_4779950_general-rules-regulations-softball.html
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_Are_The_Basic_Skills_in_Softball
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Analysis
What are the good features of a slide presentation?
A slide presentation essentially requires the following features:
1. It should begin with the slide representing the topic of the presentation
2. Second slide will be the flow of the presentation
3. Only highlight essential points on the slide. Include transitions or effects in your
slide to put emphasis on your point, but do not add too many.
4. Do not write too much on the slide or else it will result in too much of clutter.
5. Make your presentation not too long, not too short.
6. Include photos/pictures in your slides to let your audience know what you are
talking about. A picture speaks a thousand words - Try to blend that picture into
your background.
7. Use layouts included in your software.
8. Using links in the presentation will let the audience find the exact pages of
interest by linking them.
9. The slide presentation should only have one theme from start to end. Too many
themes is confusing.
Which of these features are present in the slide presentation you made?
All the features of a good slide presentation are being considered and
observed before we designed this slide so we made it a point to apply them so that
we can come up with a very effective output.
Which features are not present in the slide presentation you made?
We failed to use only one theme in the slide presentation we made,
because in every slide, we would like the audience to know what message we would
like to deliver, and what the slide is talking about, so we made the backgrounds per
page relate or speak to the ideas being presented.
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Reflections
1. What difficulties, if any, did you encounter in making the slide presentation? How
did you overcome them?
Raterta
Combining the designs with the animation which would fit with the topics being
presented per page in such a way that it will easily capture the attention of the
audience is one of the primary difficulty we experienced not only n this
presentation but in most of visual aids we make. To overcome them, we
considered the features of a good and effective slide presentation and applied
them.
Lidres
Gathering the data for the presentation and organizing them according to order of
relevance are some of the difficulties one usually experience in making
slideshows. To make it more easy and effective, we referred to the standard
features published by expert presentation designers to guide us in making an
effective output.
Aguilar
In making our slide presentation, there are a lot of difficulties we encountered.
Planning with group mates, choosing and organizing the topic, gathering data,
to name some of these problems. We considered the features of a good slide
presentation to aid us in making it much easier.
Galvez
Making a presentation is not that easy. You will be encountering a lot of
difficulties along the way. I find it most difficult in choosing the designs, styles,
and colors for the background and fonts of the pages. To be able to overcome
this, we looked for some exampled of published presentations and gathered
ideas from the features they included.
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