This Idiot's Guide to Softball was created by the British Softball Federation, and was designed to help beginners learn the basics of the game.
PART 1: THE BASIC GAME
There are two types of adult softball played in the UK: Fastpitch and Slowpitch. This Guide deals with Slowpitch, which accounts for about 95% of all UK softball. Young children (aged 6-11) often start by playing T-Ball, which is the same as Slowpitch except that the ball is hit from a stationary batting tee instead of being thrown ("pitched") to the batter.
Slowpitch softball is played by two teams of ten players each. The teams take it in turn to bat and field. The batting team is call the OFFENSIVE team and the fielding team is called the DEFENSIVE team.
Most slowpitch softball is played by mixed teams, where men and women play together, usually in a 5:5 ratio. However, this ratio sometimes varies, and Slowpitch is sometimes played by single-sex teams.
The basics of softball are very simple. A player, known appropriately enough as the PITCHER, pitches the ball to a BATTER who hits it and runs around as many bases as possible before the ball is retrieved and returned under control by the defensive team. The aim of the game is to score more RUNS than the opposition, and a run is scored when a player on the batting team advances around all three bases and back to the home base (called HOME PLATE) from where he/she started.
Unless you hit the ball so far that you can run around all the bases before it's returned (a HOME RUN). you'll probably have to stop at one or more bases on your way around and wait for the next batter to hit the ball so you can advance further.
Meanwhile, the defensive team is trying to get batters and base runners OUT, either by catching balls hit in the air, as in cricket, or in various other ways discussed later. Once three players on the offensive team have made outs, the two teams switch, the defensive team comes in to bat and the batting team goes out to the field to defend.
An inning is completed when each team has batted, and a full game consists of seven innings. A game usually takes between 45 to 90 minutes to play.
