Teams in Softball

The NPF, National Pro Fastpitch, which was known as the Women's Pro Softball League, is having a Fastpitch Festival Tour all over the country in the summer of 2003. This will kick off the season for 2004. They have a partnership with the MLB. The Festival Tour is going to be having clinics, photo shoots, and autograph sessions. This will all soon be tied in with MLB. The Festival Tour is stopping in 12 or 14 cities in the country. The NPF has 8 teams that will be participating in the 2004 season. The sport of softball has been growing over the last decade and has been helping the women's olympic team. Females are dominating the fastpitch teams, there are over 1700 teams in the country. The NPF is located in Denver, Colorado. This gives women a chance to play professionally in the sport they have chosen to work at. In the five years that this program has been running, there was 75 games on ESPN and ESPN2. That went to 400,000 households.

Like I have said in some of my other pages there are professional men's team. The league is called the USPSL. It stands for United States Professional Softball League. Their games are enthusiastic, with speed and talent. The offense is what keeps the fans coming in. It combines baseball and slow-pitch softball. Tickets only cost about 7 dollars. The league keeps the cost down that low, because they want to make the game fun for everyone in the family. The USPSL Exhibition Tournament takes the players all over the country and allows them to see it and let the fans see what they are doing.

Right now in the Big 12 conference standings Oklahoma State is leading the teams with a 4-0 record. Texas and Missouri are tied for second. Oklahoma and Texas A&M are tied for third. Nebraska and Texas Tech are tied for fourth. Baylor and Iowa State are tied for fifth place and Kansas is coming in at sixth. Oklahoma won the Big 12 Confrence National Championship in 2000.

Rules for NCAA Softball.

• Rules for the field of play: Bases must be 60 feet apart. The field should be enclosed and the fences should be 4 feet high. It should be at least 190 feet to the home run fence in left and right field from home plate and 200 in center field. It should be no more than 225 feet. There is an on deck circle, it is to be 5 feet in diameter. That allows the next batter to warm up. The pitcher's circle is 8 feet in diameter. When the pitcher has the ball in the circle, all baserunning will stop.
• Rules for equipment: The ball should be bright yellow with red raised laces. The smallest in circumfrence the ball should be 11 7/8 inches and the biggest that it can be is 12 1/8 inches.
• The bats can be no longer than 34 inches and weigh no more than 38 ounces. The bat should also be marked "OFFICIAL SOFTBALL." If the player steps into the batters box with an illegal bat, the bat will no longer be used in the game, the player at bat will be out, and the runners on base will not advance. If they try to bat with a bat that has been changed in form they batter will be thrown from the game. There is to be an ASA 2000 certification on the bat. Any bat that is used in a game and does not have the certification, the team with that bat will forfeit the game.
• The catcher must wear shin guards, helmet, face mask with a throat guard. The throat guard can be detachable. If a catcher is taking warm up pitches on the field, they must wear the mask. Everyone but the catcher and first basemen must wear a leather fielder's glove. It must meet the required: palm width 8 inches, top opening of the web 5 inches, web top to 7 1/4 inches, thumb top to bottom 9 1/4 inches, highestfinger to edge 14 inches. The catcher can wear any leather glove or mit of any size. The first basemen can wear any leather mit or glove, each must comply with the rules.
• When a player is warming up to bat, batting or running the bases, they must wear a helmet. The helmets must be the same color and have both sides have ear protectors. A pitcher may wear a helmet, but only in defense and it can not have a glossy finish. The player can also have an attachable face mask.
• No player will be allowed to wear jewelry. The only exceptions are necklaces that are taped down and under the shirt, medical alert tags, and hair barrets(they are not considered jewelry).
• A players shoes can be smooth or have spikes. Spikes can be soft or hard rubber, metal ones are allowed, but no spike can be longer than 3/4 inches from the sole of the shoe. Detachable spikes are allowed and so is a pitching toe. Just as long as they are secured tightly.
• The uniform of the team must be the same color, style and trim. The numbers on the back of the uniform should be a minimum of 6 inches high and 3 to 4 inches on the front. The numbers should be the team's opposite color of what is on the shirt. If there is bad weather then sweatpants, sweatshirts, windbreakers can be worn, but they must be the same style. Visors, headbands, and caps can be worn as part of the uniform. They do not have to be the same color, but similar and worn as the manufacturer had intended. The visitors are to make sure that their uniforms are a different color than the home team's uniform. Shin and knee guards and sliding pads should be the same color if the team decides to wear them.
• There can be up to 4 umpires. One behind the plate and 3 out in the field. Usually there are only 2 in the game.
• For the pregame the visiting team should be allowed 30 minutes to warm up on batting, but it should be 60 to 90 minutes before the game. Each team is allowed 8 minutes of defensive on warm up on the field.
• The game begins when the umpire says "play ball." On offense the batters must follow the order of the batters. Between innings the next batter can warm up in foul territory and the on deck batter can warm up in the on deck circle. For defense there should be a pitcher, catcher, infielders, and outfielders on the field. A regulation game is 7 innings long. There is a run rule of 8, it will be called after the teams have played 5 or more equal innings.
• Before the pitcher can pitch the ball in a game, they must follow these rules: both feet must be on the pitching rubber. The shoulders must be in line with the first basemen and third basemen. The ball has to remain in the hand infront of or behind the pitcher. After the signal is taken from the catcher the pitcher must bring the two hands together, but not hold them for more than 10 seconds. A pitch that is called a strike, must be between the chest to the knees and directly down the middle. A pitch that is thrown too far outside or inside will be called a "ball", if a batter recieves 4 balls from the pitcher, the batter will advance to first base automatically. If a pitched ball hits the batter, then the batter can take their base and that pitch will be ruled as a walk.

  Types of Softball	Rules for Fastpitch	Rules for Slowpitch
  Teams	USA	My Bibliography Page