A few years ago I was sitting at home bored flipping through the channels on my television and I landed on a Women’s College Softball game. My sister used to play softball so I’ve seen some games in my day so I figured why not watch it. It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I’ve grown to love Women’s College Softball even more than Major League Baseball. Let me tell you some reasons why.
Pitching
If you like those 12 – 7 or 10 – 6 games you often see in Major League Baseball then Women’s Softball isn’t for you. Women’s Softball is dominated by pitching and personally I love it. I miss the days of seeing a 1 – 0 pitching duel in baseball. I know that people say the hardest thing to do in baseball is hit a baseball but hitting a homerun just doesn’t impress me anymore since you see four or five every single game. Also when there are less homeruns, like there is in softball, it means a whole lot more when somebody does hit one.
Fundamentals
In Women’s Softball you see the fundamentals a lot more often. Since the softball is dominated by pitching teams have to manufacture runs. Hitters have to be able to bunt for hits, sacrifice bunt, sacrifice hit, steal bases, and they have to know when to go for an extra base. On the flip side the bases are closer to together in softball. This means when the other team does bunt or does hit a sacrifice your defensive players have to be on the ball immediately or the runner will get an infield single. You also have to have an extremely good defense to ever turn a double play and since teams are always stealing bases to manufacture runs you have to have a catcher that can throw out runners. I’m not saying Major League Baseball players don’t have fundamentals but you sure don’t see it very often. Most of the hitters will get a single and then just wait to be knocked in rather than manufacture a run. A lot of defensive players don’t have to hurry their throws because every time a batter hits a ground ball he assumes he’s going to be out and lollygags to first base.
No Steroids
I just can not stand the steroid talk anymore. It’s great that they’ve brought up the steroid issue and that their drug testing policy is getting better but I’m tired of everyone assuming that every time a player does well that he must be on steroids. Every time someone who was good stops playing well he is suddenly accused of once being on drugs. It’s just ridiculous. I watch about twenty to thirty softball games a year and I’ve never heard the word steroid used a single time.
Kid Friendly
These days if you watch a Major League Baseball game and look out into the stands you’ll see mostly older men with beer bellies who are drunk and cursing at the players. What ever happened to the days of the father taking their son to a baseball game? You rarely see that anymore. But in softball you see it all the time; in fact a majority of the fans are kids. Since it is a college sport there are obviously college students there supporting their school. But take away those fans and probably seventy-five percent of the rest of the crowd is kids, especially girls. They are all having a good time, spending quality time with their families and getting to enjoy their favorite players.
They’re Cute
Hey, I’m not going to lie, I’m a guy, they’re girls, it’s only natural that I find some of them attractive. However, I like the ones that are actually good players first. But if out of the good players one of them I find more attractive than the others than sure I’m going to like her. It’s just a good bonus you know? You can’t tell me there is anything wrong with this because you ladies know that your favorite players have a lot to do with which players are cute too and like I said at least I always like good players. I can’t say that for all women fans, especially all the female Mets fans that suddenly came out of the woodwork when David Wright was called up.
Double Headers and Tournament
In Major League Baseball you hardly ever see double headers anymore. The only time you’ll see a double header is if a game gets cancelled and has to be re-scheduled for the same day as another game. I understand that Major League Baseball players are playing at a much higher level but I think they should have more double headers. What ever happened to the “let’s play two” attitude? After all there is nothing better than spending a whole day watching baseball right? In College Softball double headers are commonplace. Just about every team plays close to a dozen double headers a year. In addition to that they’ll often play weekend long tournaments where they’ll play two games in a row on three consecutive days. The tournaments are great too because you often get match ups between powerhouses you normally wouldn’t see because unlike baseball not every team plays every other team every season.
Postseason
Don’t get me wrong, I love the World Series. I think the World Series is ten times better than the Super Bowl or the NBA Championship but I also love the Women’s College World Series. At the end of the season the softball teams that are chosen have to compete in a double elimination tournament called the Regional Finals. Then the remaining teams compete in another double elimination tournament called the Super Regional Finals. Finally there are eight teams left and they go to the World Series for another double elimination tournament. What I like about it is that like the Major League Baseball playoffs there are three rounds but the difference is in the Majors you play a series of games against one team. In the double eliminate playoffs that the softball teams play you end up playing a different team in each of your games. It makes the games a lot more interesting and a lot more challenging for the teams. It also guarantees more match ups between the powerhouses in the tournament. Also much like the regular season tournaments all the playoff games take place in one tournament over a couple of days. You don’t have these long drawn out series that take two weeks like in Major League Baseball.
Length
Softball games are much shorter than baseball games. In softball they play 7 innings but that isn’t really the reason it’s shorter, even if softball was 9 innings it would be a lot shorter. One of the reasons softball games are shorter is because the games are pitching duels. But the main reason the games are shorter is because the batter comes up to bat, the pitcher pitches the ball right away, the batter swings and if they miss they get right back in the batter’s box. The pitcher’s don’t stand there five minutes between pitches, the batter doesn’t stand outside the box for five minutes and the pitcher doesn’t throw over to first base a hundred times because there is no leading off in softball. If baseball players went at the quick rate that softball players do then there wouldn’t be so many people complaining that baseball is boring.
