PART 4: PITCHING

The two basic types of softball, FASTPITCH and SLOWPITCH, are defined mainly by the speed at which the ball is pitched to the batter.  Fastpitch Softball is the international competition form of the sport, and Women's Fastpitch is an Olympic Medal Sport.  Fastpitch is played in the UK, almost always as a single-sex sport, but the overwhelming majority of UK players play Slowpitch, and that's what we're looking at here.

In Slowpitch, the pitcher must start with one or both feet in contact with the pitching plate.  He/she may take one step in any direction, but one foot must remain in contact with the pitching plate until the ball is released.  The ball is lobbed underarm and must have an arc which reaches at least six feet and no more than twelve feet from the ground.  Anything else will be called an illegal pitch by the umpire and will count as a ball unless the batter swings at the pitch.

The pitcher in Slowpitch may seem on a hiding to nothing, since everyone is going to hit the ball.  But the trick is to use different kinds of spin, a high arc and variations in the speed or angle of delivery to make things as awkward as possible for the batters.

As shown in the diagram, the batter will be standing next to home plate, ready to hit.  Here comes the pitch!  For a moment, let's ignore the main object of the game, which is for the batter to hit the ball.  Suppose the batter doesn't?  What happens then?

STRIKES AND BALLS

A pitched ball will be described (by the umpire) as either a STRIKE or a BALL.   Basically, a strike is a good pitch and a ball is a bad one.

A GOOD PITCH

• Must be pitched from the pitching plate.
• Must have an arc of beteen 6 and 12 feet from the ground.
• Must pass between the height of the batter's knee and back shoulder as he/she stands at home plate in a normal batting stance (you can't make it harder by crouching down!).
• Must pass across some part of home plate.
• Must not, in the opinion of the umpire, be too fast.

A pitched ball, which fulfils all these conditions, will be called a STRIKE because it will have been judged by the umpire to have passed through at least some part of the STRIKE ZONE.  The strike zone is an imaginary three-dimensional column of space with depth, width and corners corresponding to the shape of home plate.  A ball need only touch (pass through) any part of this zone to be called a strike.

If a pitch is good and the batter fails to swing, or swings and misses, or swings and hits the ball into Foul Territory (without it being caught) or into Dead Ball Territiory, then the pitch will be called a strike.  If three strikes are called against a batter and they haven't managed to hit the ball into Fair Territory they are STRUCK OUT.

If a pitcher pitches four BALLS - bad pitches which are out of the strike zone and which the batter makes no attempt to hit - then the batter will walk to first base if female and to second for males.  Putting batters on base is dangeous since they are liable to get around to score runs, so the defensive team will hope that the pitcher doesn't do this too often!  The basic job of a Slowpitch pitcher is to throw strikes!