This. It drives me crazy too. Non-stop extremely loud screaming from 20 women all at the same time. STFU and simply play the game. The screaming is unnecessary.
Softball Fans
- Thread starter Jeffreauxdawg
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That’s no different than the dugout doing it. Of course, it’s not cheering but the dugout isn’t quiet either.
See, this is where I have a problem with baseball complainers. If complaint is baseball is slow, that tells me you are lazy. Baseball is work.
My biggest gripes about softball are the substitute runner and the fact that one pitcher can possibly throw in all 3 games in a weekend series. But I only follow it if we're good.
Right. I get your point.
The differences between noise coming from the dugout in baseball and softball include: 1) the softball noise is absolute screaming that is coordinated, high-pitched, loud, coming from a group of 20 women all at once, and consistent (almost unending); and 2) the baseball noise is coming from individual men yelling their own form of encouragement and is therefore not nearly as annoying.
That is just my experience and opinion. Certainly, I could be wrong.
My daughter played softball for a local travel team a few years ago, and that's where I first experienced the crazy cheering in softball. It annoyed my daughter too.
I played baseball for years. As a player, I never thought the game seemed to move too slowly. However, as a fan, I've often thought it was slow.
Here's an idea I've had for speeding up a baseball game: one pitch for each batter. If the pitch is a swinging strike, a taken strike, or a foul tip/ball, the batter is out. If the pitch is a ball, the batter walks and goes to first base. Everything else stays the same.
That should help keep everybody awake.
There is quite a difference between hitting a 100 mph from 60.5' and 75 mph from 43' even though reaction time is the same. The amount of time the ball is actually in the hitting zone (say about 2') is 38% more with the softball. That's considerably more room for error. Especially with a ball that is 33% larger.
Reaction time is just a small piece of the data. My 11 year old faced 72 in Little League (46') last year and lined out to shortstop. That is the equivalent reaction time of 95 mph from 60'6". I promise you he will not touch 95 mph.
Here's another way to think about it. If Superman throws a pitch from the center field wall at 682 mph it would cross the plate in .40 seconds after release. That's the same as 100 mph from a big league mound or 75 mph from a softball mound. Would you argue it's harder to hit 78 mph from a softball mound than 682 mph from the center field wall? You have about 900% more time to make contact with the softball than Superman's 4 seamer.
Fastpitch softball is extremely hard to hit. I'm sure most baseball players would struggle at first. But given time to understand the release point and pitch angles they would adjust their swings and destroy it like they do major league pitching which is absolutely harder to hit. Otherwise we'd have lots of women playing MLB baseball making millions instead of living in poverty trying to play fastpitch softball after college.
.0182 vs .0136 seconds. That's the amount of time the ball is in that 2' hitting zone you mention if you factor 75 mph vs 100. This, of course assumes constant speed, which isn't gonna be accurate, but close enough. That's .0046 seconds difference, or 4.6 milliseconds. .4 seconds or 400 milliseconds is the length of a blink, so the difference you site is about 1/87th of the time it takes to blink. Don't see that is anywhere close to significant enough to even make a difference, much less, "considerably more room"
Reaction time is "just a small piece of data"? I don't agree, but if that's true then it lends more to the idea that hitting a softball is harder because of movement potential.
Sport Science did one of their episodes on this, applying the science of it. Here's an article that referenced that very study:
"Anyone who has played on the diamond before has heard or even said that hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports. Well, John Brenkus and the Sport Science crew just may think that hitting a softball is harder, and they have the evidence that shows it.
Studying the movement and physiology of Danielle Lawrie, Sport Science compares a 70 mph fastball to a 90 mph baseball pitch. On average, a baseball is released approximately 55 feet from home plate, resulting in a reaction time of .44 seconds for the hitter. By comparison, a 70 mph softball, released from an average distance of 37 feet from the plate, will result in 0.35 seconds of reaction time for the batter.
In other words, a softball batter has 20% less time to react to a pitch than a baseball batter.
Furthermore, gravity works in baseball players’ favors, as baseball pitches must follow a downward trajectory. This gives hitters the opportunity to adjust by dropping their hands.
A softball pitch, by contrast, is almost always rising after exiting from pitcher’s release. This means that hitters have to fight gravity and in less time.
We’re gonna agree with technology of the Sport Science team and say that hitting a softball is harder than hitting a baseball."
The study compared a 90mph baseball to a 70mph softball, but the 5 math still supports the idea that it is harder to hit the softball, all things considered.
Here's another counter to you. It's an AI response from Google regarding the difference in size of softball and baseball, and diameter of fastpitch softball bats vs baseball:
"Fastpitch bats (2-1/4" diameter) are narrower than baseball bats (2-5/8" diameter), making it harder to get a hit in fastpitch due to a smaller surface area, not easier. Although softballs are larger, the thinner bat, combined with shorter reaction times, creates a smaller margin for error and requires higher precision to hit the sweet spot.
- Barrel Size Disparity: High school and college baseball bats have 2-5/8 inch barrels, while fastpitch softball bats have smaller 2-1/4 inch barrels.
- Difficulty Factors: While the softball itself is larger, the combination of a narrower bat (2-1/4") and a smaller sweet spot compared to a 2-5/8" baseball bat makes solid contact more challenging to achieve.
- Impact on Success: Because the bat is thinner, it is easier to hit a softball on the handle or end, resulting in more "miss hits" or weaker contact compared to the wider barrel of a baseball bat, says The Hutchinson Collegian."
In both fastpitch & baseball reading the pitcher, thousands of hours of swinging at balls, etc., to pick up on release points, etc. are necessary precisely due to reaction time and the human mind's & eyes limited ability to pick up clues in time to recognize, make a decision and swing.
For that reason, I'm certain baseball players would fair better if they'd had equal practice, but am also confident fastpitch hitters would be able to adapt to baseball. The woman would find their reaction time a little better in baseball than in softball, But their ability to swing with as much power as the men who play baseball would never be a gap they could close.
Then again, it would almost assuredly be a steeper learning curve for men hitting against fastpitch pitchers due to the greater potential for late-movement, with the biggest struggle probably having to learn how to catch up to a literally rising fastpitch.
At the 2004 Pepsi All-Star Softball Game, Finch struck out future Hall of Fame slugger Albert Pujols, two-time All Star Brian Giles, and future Hall of Fame catcher Mike Piazza, who took his leave from the batter's box in shameful one-two-three fashion.
"I never touched a pitch," Giles readily admitted. "Her fastball
was the fastest thing I've ever seen, from that distance. It rises and
cuts at the same time."
Seeing his colleagues get so thoroughly embarrassed at the game, all-time home run leader Barry Bonds boastfully challenged Finch to a duel of sorts.
"You faced all them little chumps... You gotta face the best," he goaded.
When she faced him months later -- slinging underhand rockets from 43-feet away -- Bonds only tapped the ball once, and it wimpishly puttered into foul territory.
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I find this subject fascinating. And because the litmus in these Sport Science experiments is 70mph vs 90mph, I got curious how realistic that control is across the different sports.
ChatGPT says less than 1% of Power 5 softball pitchers throw 70mph consistently. Narrowed it down to 4-5 total. It also stated that 80% of Power 5 baseball pitchers throw 90mph. Or nearly 500 pitchers.
The vast majority of softball pitchers are throwing 60-65mph. That velocity would seem to be a better measuring stick for the difficulty level of the sport as a whole. Not the 1% outliers. If using the 1% outliers, then Sport Science should use 100mph baseball vs 70mph softball.
Finch, Osterman, Abbott, (or Canady/Pickens) are/were unicorns comparatively when you can name 500 18-22 year old young men that can hit the same velocity used on the baseball side of the study.
ChatGPT could have given me bad data though.
It’s the dugout times about 1,000. With shrill harsher sounding voices. It’s unwatchable.
Performance Comparison
- College Level: The average speed for Division 1 college softball pitchers is approximately 63 mph, making this a standard high-performance speed at that level.
- Reaction Time: At 63 mph from a 43-foot distance, the ball reaches the plate in roughly 0.35 to 0.40 seconds, which mirrors the time a Major League Baseball (MLB) batter has to react to a 95+ mph fastball.
Can't really get into it on TV, but I don't have a rooting interest for any team or anybody save MSU. However, did have some friends with a daughter on those Northwest Rankin teams the last two years. Went and saw quite a few of their games and enjoyed it.