Episode Six: Softball, Softball, Softball
Bobby Sox: Early Days of Softball
Vassar College became the first school to field two women’s amateur baseball teams in 1866.
In 1898, Lizzie Arlington became the first woman to sign a professional baseball contract when she signed with the Philadelphia Nationals men’s team!
The Philadelphia Bobbies – an 1890s women’s baseball team.
In 1904, Spalding’s Indoor Baseball Guide (which is what we were calling softball at this point) featured an entire section on women’s softball!
In 1943, Phillip Wrigley (who owned the Chicago Cubs) established the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, a professional women’s baseball league. It started as a substitute for men’s baseball while men were overseas in WWII.
After the American Girls Professional Baseball League folded in 1954, fast-pitch amateur leagues sprung up all over the country and were wildly popular. The New York Times described these leagues as “…no sissy sport played for laughs.”
Going Pro
Billie Jean King helped start a professional women’s softball league in 1975 — the International Women’s Professional Softball League. The league was the first professional sports league for women’s team sports.
Softball made its Olympic debut in 1996, where the US Women’s Softball Team took home the gold.
And again US Women’s Softball won gold in 2000….
And AGAIN in 2004.
The Women’s Pro Softball league was launched in 1997. In 2004, the WPSL was re-branded as the National Pro Fastpitch League.
The National Pro Fastpitch league includes teams with wonderful names like the Scrap Yard Dawgs.
Athletes Unlimited
Athletes Unlimited launched in March 2020 with the goal to “reinvent women’s pro sports” starting with softball. Athletes Unlimited wanted to create a new model for women’s sports, based on fantasy sports. The first season wrapped up in September and the second season will start in August 2021.
Athletes Unlimited structures its league differently. Players compete individually. After each week, the highest scoring player on each team (determined by an involved scoring rubric based on team and individual performance) form four team captains, and these captains draft their teams. That means each week there are new teams.
Cat Osterman, the winner of the 2020 Athletes Unlimited Softball Season.
Athletes Unlimited is an exciting new take on sports and we’re looking forward to next season!
And now… the Women’s College World Series
Softball is one of the few NCAA revenue sports, including men’s football, men’s basketball, and men’s baseball.
NCAA D1 Softball and the Women’s College World Series is a BIG DEAL!!! It is one of the best stages in the world for the best softball players in the world. Schools like UCLA, Arizona, and Oklahoma are absolute power houses.
Names to know…. some of the greats of College Softball
Stacey Nuveman, one of the greatest sluggers of all time by professional and olympic metrics.
Cat Osterman, holds the record for the most strikeouts pitched in a 7-inning games. she’s thrown 9 perfect games and ranks second in DI history with 2,265 strikeouts.
Lauren Chamberlain, holds the DI home run record at 95 and DI slugging percentage.
Rachel Garcia, both a fantastic pitcher and slugger. In the 2019 WCWS it was UCLA versus Washington and she threw 10 shutout innings and then hit a walkoff homerun to take UCLA to the championships…. talk about doing it all.