Nine Ways That Softball Can Achieve Baseball’s Popularity

Before I commence with this, I would like to make one thing perfectly clear:

This is not, in any way, shape, or form, a diatribe against women’s fast-pitch softball or its players or coaches.

Indeed, I am among the millions of people who have an appreciation for the game and the woman athletes that play it. Anyone who can pitch a ball underhand at speed up to 80 miles an hour and strike out major leaguers deserves the utmost respect from me.

Having been involved in fast-pitch softball for a number of years as a coach, as well as having been involved with baseball as a coach and a player, I think I am able to compare the two sports as far as popularity and appeal to the general public.

It is good to see that softball has gained big strides in recent years, particularly with regard to the success that the U.S. National Team has had in the Olympic Games (even though the sport has been cut for the 2012 Games in London), and the broadening appeal of the Women’s College World Series, shown every year on ESPN.

However, in my observation and involvement in softball – I coached the sport at the youth level for a number of years, and assisted a junior college team and a high school team for a time – I have noticed one glaring thing:

The culture of softball and its players and coaches, in my view, is too much like the NFL – the No Fun League. It is too conventional and conforming, with too many unnecessary restrictions, while baseball has more of a fun variety in style among the people who play, coach, and even umpire it.

Having said that, I have come up with nine ideas as to how softball, at the collegiate level and higher, can achieve more diversity in style as well as rise in popularity to where it can match baseball…

1.  Change the number of innings played in a game from 7 to 9. Seven inning games, to me, indicate that women are thought of as incapable of playing nine innings on a regular basis like their male counterparts. That is a form of sexism.

2.  Get rid of the international tiebreaker rule that says that every extra inning starts with a runner on second base. What on earth is the point in that? Baseball wouldn’t dream of such a thing, why should softball – I wish someone would give me one good reason why that rule was made.

3. Change the rule that says the playing field’s dimensions have to be 190 to 200 feet and symmetrical, with just a little outfield scoreboard. I have one word for that – BORING.

A large part of baseball’s charm is the fact that its stadiums are as diverse as the cities they are in. Softball desperately needs places that have features like the Green Monster in Fenway Park, or ivy-covered walls at Wrigley Field, or an exploding scoreboard like the White Sox have, or even a swimming pool that the Diamondbacks’ Chase Field has beyond their right field fence. Features like that adds more variety and appeal, which results in more popularity.

4.  Get rid of the rule that says that a softball umpire’s style (how balls, strikes, and outs are called) have to be exactly the same, like they currently are. I have four words for that – TOO RESTRICTIVE AND CONFORMING. Baseball’s umpires, through the years, have had styles that are more colorful and diverse, which like the stadiums makes the game more interesting to the fans.

5.  Move the pitching rubber from 43 feet to 45 feet, which will give even more advantage to the batter than they already have gained when the rubber was moved from 43 feet from 40 feet a few years back. Face it folks, the average fan is more entertained by home run slugfests than pitching-dominated matches. And it is the average fan that softball needs to attract in order to gain in popularity.

As Kevin Costner said in his portrayal of Crash Davis in the movie Bull Durham, “Strikeouts are boring and worse yet, they’re fascist.”

6.  Softball dearly needs more stars with colorful and interesting personalities, who are non-conformist and non-conventional.

In my involvement and observations, WAY too many softball players and coaches are what I call Lou Gehrig and Tom Landry types: conservative, conventional, conforming, and ultimately boring. Far too many teams have a corporate culture and personality to them, where everyone looks and acts the same, and that hurts the game’s appeal.

Softball needs more Babe Ruth / Manny Ramirez / Dennis Rodman types, people who revel in looking and acting against the grain but are still outstanding on the field. The game needs more teams like the Oakland Raiders of the 1970s, who looked and acted however they pleased and had only three rules: Show up on time, play hard, and don’t let your teammates down. That was part of the formula that won three Super Bowls for them.

As a famous college football coach once said, “I’d rather coach guys that expressed themselves than a bunch of clones.” And he won three national championships.

7. The sport needs more of an emphasis on its history and records. MUCH more.

If you ask an avid, die-hard softball fan who never missed a game who the all-time home run or strikeout leader is, or what’s Jennie Finch’s career strikeout total or Lisa Fernandez’s lifetime batting average, or who has the longest consecutive game hitting streak, they wouldn’t know. Or worse, they wouldn’t care.

Casual baseball fans, however, know about Babe Ruth’s 714 home runs, Hank Aaron’s 755 homers, and Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak. They know that Ted Williams was the last man to hit .400, and that Nolan Ryan threw seven no-hitters. That is a large part of baseball’s charm, and the fact that softball has none of that badly hurts the sport’s appeal.

8.  A huge part of the appeal and charm of baseball are the men in the announcing booths who describe the action; from Mel Allen and Red Barber in the 1950s, to Harry Caray’s 7th inning stretches at Wrigley Field, to Ernie Harwell in Detroit and the late, great Jack Buck in St. Louis.

Not to mention the greatest announcer in the history of sports, the Dodgers’ Vin Scully.

Where are softball’s announcers that can approach the appeal of those great men?  Who describe home runs like the White Sox announcers do on WGN: “You can put it on the board, yes!” Like its lack of historical sense, this hurts softball.

9.   The sport needs a Major League Softball on the level of the successful WNBA, that is sponsored, owned and run by Major League Baseball – similar to how the WNBA was sponsered by their NBA counterparts during their fledging years.

There could be twelve teams to start with six teams in a western and eastern division, located in major league cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, with 10,000-capacity parks built that are models of their baseball counterparts. If promoted properly, it could work. And work well.

I know there’s a women’s professional league, the WPSL, but in my view, it isn’t working; the teams are only located in the midwest and east coast, and there’s no real promotion or publicity outside of a handful of games on ESPN. Plus they play in parks that, well, let’s just say are not quite at the level of many minor league stadiums out there. A Major League Softball modeled after the WNBA would stand a much better chance.

I understand that these suggestions may be met with a bit of distain among softball afficionados out there, who revel in the differences that their sport has from baseball. But…

If softball is to approach baseball’s appeal, and popularity, like I think it should, then the powers that run the sport should strongly consider what I have said here.

After all, it would only help the game and perhaps draw new fans, which I feel women’s fast-pitch softball deserves.