George Hancock, at the time a reporter for Chicago Board of Trade, invented the game of softball in 1887. The first game was played indoors, inside the Farragut Boat Club in Chicago.[1] Someone found a boxing glove and threw it and someone else hit it with a stick. George Hancock shouted "Let's play ball" and tied the boxing glove into the shape of a ball. The men chalked a diamond shape onto the floor and broke a broom handle to serve as a bat. This is credited as the first softball game which was played on Thanksgiving Day November 24, 1887 after a Harvard-Yale football game that had been followed by telegraph.[2][3][4][5][6][7]
Hancock's original game of indoor baseball quickly caught on in popularity, becoming international with the formation of a league in Toronto. That year, 1897, was also the premiere publication of the Indoor Baseball Guide. This was the first nationally distributed publication on the new game and it lasted a decade. In the spring of 1888, Hancock's game moved outdoors.[8] It was played on a small diamond and called indoor-outdoor. Due to the sport's mass appeal, Hancock published his first set of indoor-outdoor rules in 1889.[9]
See also
References
- ^ The Farragut Boat Club is mentioned in a news item that appeared later. See: "Sports of the Athletes". The New York Times. July 30, 1889. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9502E1DC1030E633A25753C3A9619C94689FD7CF. Retrieved 2009-09-23.
- ^ "History of Softball". SoftballPerformance.com. http://www.softballperformance.com/softball-history/. Retrieved 2009-08-12.
- ^ "The History of Softball". International Softball Federation. http://www.internationalsoftball.com/english/the_isf/history_of_softball.asp. Retrieved 2006-12-31.
- ^ David Levinson & Karen Christensen, ed (1996). Encyclopedia of World Sports. London & New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 371–73. ISBN 0-19-512778-1.
- ^ "Ivy League Sports". http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/documents/yahaseries.asp. Retrieved 2009-09-23.
- ^ "Harvard-Yale Football "The Game": History". http://www.the-game.org/history-scores.htm. Retrieved 2009-09-23.
- ^ "Hancock, George - World of Sports Science". http://www.faqs.org/sports-science/Fo-Ha/Hancock-George.html. Retrieved 2009-09-24.
- ^ Plummer III, Bill (1998). "Slow Pitch Softball History Definition Page". http://www.angelfire.com/sd/slopitch/history.html. Retrieved 2009-09-24.
- ^ "History of Softball". http://www.baseball-brainiac.com/history-of-softball.html. Retrieved 2009-09-24.
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