Who would win in a softball game, the leading women’s softball team or the New York Yankees?
If a girl is the second baseman, is it ok to try and knock slide into her ankles when you steal the base? Is there a differing level of physical aggression allowed in a sport where girls are let in?
A typical softball pitcher manages about 60 mph max on her pitches. A typical baseball pitcher is throwing at half-again that speed.
Fastpitch softballs are hard to hit because of the distance traveled. The pitcher is not required to have her foot on the mark when the ball leaves her hand (unlike baseball’s technical requirement), so a long-legged pitcher can be QUITE close by the time the ball actually leaves her hand. Even at the slower speed, that makes things very difficult (the time from hand to glove is quite short). That’s why Reggie Jackson struck out in the perhaps most famous example of softball pitcher vs. baseball slugger (personally, I’d have loved to see Rod Carew try instead!).
IF everyone who ends up playing baseball played fastpitch softball instead, then the relative levels of the gals and the guys would be predictable; the gals would have to play in their own leagues, and the guys would dominate any co-ed version. Comparing the game to baseball is pointless; how do you measure how “easy” it is to play? But the perception certainly is that softball is easier to play, which is why older men play it (though again, they usually gravitate to slo-pitch, which isn’t anything like fast pitch!).
And I would just like to point out to all the people out there who assert that somehow women CAN’T play on a 90’ basepath diamond that women HAVE competed on fields that big. Or did no one hear about professional female baseball teams? Duh?
While i agree with you that women CAN play on a 90’ basepath diamond, the link i gave in post #48 actually shows that the longest basepaths used during women’s pro baseball in the 1940s and 1950s was 85’.
Well, as I noted earlier women can play on a 90’ basepath diamond, but they stink comparatively, here is the sorta PC linky again, which doesn’t really go into how much the Silver Bullets struggled against mediocre semi-pro teams then ultimately against purely amateur teams made up of Hollywood actors, etc. scheduled soley because the Silver Bullets might have a chance of beating them. I believe they went 6-38, 11-33, 18-34 and 23-22 against increasingly amateurish teams until they folded for lack of interest, since fortunately there isn’t Title IX welfare yet for pro sports that would force us to fund them regardless of public interest or the quality of the product, like there is in college. 
I’ll see if i can keep the words to two syllables or fewer for you, Operation Ripper, because obviously you’re having trouble grasping the issue here.
The question is not whether women’s teams can beat men’s teams. Your link to the Silver Bullets tells us nothing about the question at hand, because it tells us nothing about women playing against other women.
Watching Andy Roddick play tennis against Maria Sharapova probably wouldn’t be very interesting either, but watching Maria Sharapova play against Justine Henin is great. Two different things. Do you understand?
Are you even paying attention to what this thread is about?
Does this not count? I’m not a big sports fan, but it seems like it should.
A woman has often come pretty close, until this year.
Peace,
mangeorge
I remember clearly that the fastest ball ever thrown was a softball. By a man, I’ll give you, but faster than any hardball pitch. The speed was given in MPH too, not in time from mound to base. A lot of excuses were made by baseball fans but the fact remains that a softball flew faster than any hardball. 130 MPH sticks in my head, but could be wrong. And that speed could have been bettered by now.
I wish I could find a link.
Know what? There were some damn fine answers to the OP. I think that was solved. But then we decided to have a debate. Take it to another forum. Closed.
samclem GQ moderator