Sport: Softball

Indoor baseball, according to legend, was invented by George Hancock who, one rainy afternoon at the old Farragut Boat Club in Chicago, started a game, using a broomstick for a bat, a boxing glove for a ball. That was in 1888. In the next 40 years, the game crept tentatively out of doors, developed a loose set of rules and modestly acquired a new name: “softball.” Suddenly, in 1930, it became a U. S. mania.

There are now roughly 2,000,000 enthusiastic softball players in the U. S., more than 60,000 organized amateur teams, and 1,000 lighted parks, mostly in the Midwest. In 1934, the Amateur Softball Association was formed, drew up a book of rules. Since then more than 1,000,000 copies have been distributed. Last week in Chicago, 40 men’s and 16 women’s softball teams, each champion of a state or a city of more than 500,000 population, met to decide the championship of the U. S. In three days, crowds estimated at 150,000 watched their games.

The Ke-Nash-A team of Kenosha, Wis., defending champions, were put out in the first round. So were the Cudahy Puritans of Denver, another favorite.

According to its current rules, “softball” is a misnomer. The ball, with a 12-in. circumference compared to a baseball’s 9 in., is hard enough to break a catcher’s nose. Catchers wear masks, fielders wear gloves. The bat is thinner than a baseball bat. Softball pitchers, 37 ft. from the plate, throw underhand. The bases are 60 ft. apart instead of 90 and runners cannot steal until the ball reaches the catcher. There are ten players on a side. In other respects, the rules of softball are almost identical with those of baseball. The most obvious difference between the games is that softball is much faster. A good softball pitcher goes through several games without allowing a run. No-hit games are common. Batters start swinging as the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand. The size of the field is adapted to lighting for night games. The popularity of softball is enlarged because women are not constitutionally incapable of playing it.

How and why softball became a craze, nobody knows. Promoters have at least been shrewd enough to profit from it. George Sisler, longtime first baseman for the St. Louis Browns, who now has a St. Louis sporting goods store, is head of the American Association, owns two softball parks in St. Louis, controls three others. Ordinary softball parks seat 4,000, cost $3,500 to build and, with 10¢ admissions attracting crowds from 1,000 to capacity, may pay for themselves in a month. Principal rival to the American Association is the National Association, run by a onetime baseballer and sportswriter named Philip Rosier. Next year, Promoter Rosier plans a big-league circuit, with professional teams in nine Midwestern cities.

Still too young to have many heroes, softball already has a few who, if the sport acquires prestige to match its popularity, may presently become household names. Pitcher Harry Kraft of Ke-Nash-A last year struck out 38 men in a 19-inning national tournament game. Softball’s best batter is John Doehring, left-handed football forward-passer on the Chicago Bears, who plays in the Milwaukee league. Other softball stars are “Two-gun” Joe Hunt, Phoenix, Ariz, first baseman; Pitcher “Cannonball” Bailey of Newport, Ky.; Al Lindy, Ke-Nash-A’s best hitter. Softball’s most highly paid performer is Matt Ruppert, “wildcat” professional, who made $50,000 last year by pitching, for various teams, in 200 games, in half of which he allowed no hits.