“It’s not whether you win or lose its how you play the game.” This is a famous quote said by a great sportswriter Grantland Rice. Everyone wants to win, but in softball and baseball only one team can. Although softball and baseball have the similar concepts, they are both very different.
Some of the similarities between these two sports are that there are nine players on the field at a time. The team that is playing in the field only has to get three outs. First base is the only base that you are able to run through. All the other bases you have to stay on the bag to be safe. On both fields, there is only sixty feet between the pitching rubber and home plate.
Now for some differences: there are many but these are the main ones. Guys play baseball, and girls play softball; that’s an obvious difference. Softball games usually only go to seven innings and baseball usually has only nine innings. The bats in softball are aluminum, but in baseball they used wooden bats. Balls that are used in baseball are smaller and harder than the balls you would use in softball. In softball, the balls are usually yellow unlike the “whitish” balls used in baseball.
The infields in softball are dirt, and the fences around the outfield are closer in, while in baseball the infield is grass except for the base lines, and the fences are farther out around the outfield. For baseball the bases are ninety feet away where as in softball they are only sixty feet away.
Now for the pitching differences, first is the style of pitching. In softball you have the windmill style, but in baseball you would pitch over hand. The fast balls are the most common type of pitch in both, but the speed is the major difference. The average speed of a softball pitchers’ fast ball is between fifty-five to seventy miles per hour. In baseball the average speeds can get up to eighty-five to one hundred miles per hour. Wow! Lastly the gloves are different. Because of the smaller balls in baseball, the pockets are smaller. You might have guessed already, but just in case you haven’t, the pockets in softball gloves have larger pockets for the larger balls.
These are the differences and similarities between these two great sports. Now it’s time for you to decide which one you would like better. Just remember that baseball may be America’s pastime, but softball is just as amazing if not more.