Softball

Rules for Softball

A ball that is eleven to twelve inches around is used in the team sport of softball. This ball is thrown from a player called a pitcher and then hit by an offensive player known as a batter with a round, smooth stick called a bat, which has increasingly become made of aluminum or metal. In order to score during the game you must have a batter running around the bases and through touching a series bases, reach the final one, home plate. This sport is a direct relative to that of baseball, with the only difference being the composition of the ball, whereas a baseball is harder than a softball. The sport has a governing body for competition and it is known as the International Softball Federation, which holds the world championships every four years.

Each game begins the exact same way. The pitcher for one team attempts to throw the ball past the other player, who is at bat. The ball is usually aimed a strike zone, which can vary in size depending on the player who is batting. A more skilled pitcher will try to throw the ball as close to the strike zone as they can so that it never touches that zone. Another strategy that is used by the pitcher is that they may pitch around, walk basically, a strong hitter in order to get to a weaker hitter who is coming to bat next. The strategy for this is that the weaker hitter can do less, which is not always the case. Any pitch that passes through the strike zone, swung out and missed, or swung at and hit is considered a strike.

The standard rules are that the team with the most runs scored will win the game after the seventh inning. The bottom part of the seventh inning will not be played if the team that is due to bat is the team that is leading, which is due to the fact that the team has already won the game. In the event that the game is all tied up after seven innings, there will be extra innings, which means that the game continues until one team has more runs that the other at the end of a complete inning. If playing by international rules, the team batting will have a runner on second to start the inning, which is the player that made the last out the previous inning. There is also what is known as a mercy rule in the game of softball. This means that if the scoring differenct is 20 runs or more after three innings, 15 or more after four innings, or 10 or more after five innings, that the team leading is declared the winner at that point. This rule only comes into play at the end of an inning in case the team that is batting can narrow that lead.