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Fastpitch
Fastpitch softball, also known as fastpitch or fastball, is a form of softball played by both women and men. While the teams are most often segregated by sex, coed fast-pitch leagues also exist. Fast pitch is considered the most competitive form of softball. It is the format played at the Olympic Games. Softball was on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) program in 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2020. It will not be a part of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris. The fast pitch style is also used in college softball and other international competition. It is the form which will be used in the American Women's Professional Fastpitch league, a women's professional league whose inaugural season begins in June 2022. Pitchers throw the ball with an underhand motion at speeds up to for women and up to for men.The fastest pitch on record was thrown by Eddie Feigner who was clocked at 104 mph. The pitching style of fastpitch is different from that of slowpitch softbal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Softball
Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hancock. There are two rule sets for softball generally: ''slow pitch softball'' and ''fastpitch''. Slow pitch softball is commonly played recreationally, while women's fastpitch softball is a Summer Olympic sport and is played professionally. Depending on the variety being played and the age and gender of the players, the particulars of field and equipment vary. While distances between bases of 60 feet are standard across varieties, the pitcher's plate ranges from 35 to 43 feet away from home plate, and the home run fence can be 220 to 300 feet away from home plate. The ball itself is typically 11 or 12 inches (28 or 30 cm) in circumference, also depending on specifics of the competition. Softball rules vary somewhat from those of baseba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Connecticut Brakettes
The Connecticut Brakettes is a women's fastpitch softball team based in Stratford, Connecticut. The team has won many state, regional, national, and international tournaments (28 ). History The team was founded in 1947 by William S. Simpson as the Raybestos Girl All-Stars. Over the years the team name has changed to Raybestos Brakettes (1948), Hi-Ho Brakettes, Stratford Brakettes, or Connecticut Brakettes (2006). The Brakette name is derived from the main product of the Raybestos plant in Stratford which produced brake linings for automobiles and trucks. In 2006 the Brakettes fielded two teams. The Connecticut Brakettes were members of National Pro Fastpitch (NPF), finishing second in the regular season with a record of 27–15. In the NPF championship game, the Connecticut Brakettes lost to the fourth place New England Riptide 2–0. In 2006 they also fielded the Stratford Brakettes in the Amateur Softball Association (ASA). They won the 2006 women's major fastpitch to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Women's Professional Fastpitch
Women's Professional Fastpitch (WPF) is a professional women's fastpitch softball league in the United States. The new league began its promotional campaign in 2021 and launched its inaugural season in June 2022. The league is unrelated to the defunct league that used the names National Pro Fastpitch (NPF) and Women's Pro Softball League (WPSL) along with Women's Professional Fastpitch. Teams Future teams Timeline of WPF teams *Current WPF teams in tan *Former WPF members or defunct teams in blue DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:1100 height:auto barincrement:25 Period = from:2022 till:2024 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal PlotArea = right:140 left:20 bottom:20 top:0 Colors = id:barcolor value:rgb(0.99,0.7,0.7) id:line value:black id:bg value:white PlotData= width:20 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s bar:1 color:tan1 from:2022 till:end text: Smash It Sports Vipers (2022–present) bar:2 color:tan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Women's Professional Sports
Women's professional sports are a relatively new phenomenon, having largely emerged within the latter part of the 20th century. Unlike amateur women athletes, professional women athletes are able to acquire an income which allows them to earn a living without requiring another source of income. In international terms, most top female athletes are not paid and work full-time or part-time jobs in addition to their training, practice, and competition schedules. Professional organizations for women in sport are most common in developed countries where there are investors available to buy teams and businesses which can afford to sponsor them in exchange for publicity and the opportunity to promote a variety of their products. Very few governments support professional sports, male or female. Today there are a number of professional women's sport leagues in the United States and Canada. History From the 1800s, in Western Europe and some other countries, women's physiology was desc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Megan Gibson
Megan Lynn Gibson-Loftin (born March 25, 1986) is an American, former collegiate All-American, professional softball pitcher and current pitching coach at Houston. Gibson-Loftin played college softball for Texas A&M where she is the career leader in offense walks and led them to a runner-up finish at the 2008 Women's College World Series. She also ranks top-10 in the latter category and home runs in the Big 12 Conference. She was selected by the Philadelphia Force as the second overall pick in the 2008 NPF Draft, eventually playing for four seasons. After the Force folded she was picked up by the Tennessee Diamonds in 2010. Career College Born Megan Lynn Gibson in Spring, Texas, Gibson-Loftin played college softball at Texas A&M from 2004 to 2008. In the 2008 season, she was collegiate national player of the week from February 25 to March 2. She led her team to win the program's second Big 12 regular season and first tournament championship. In the postseason, she led her te ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bunt (baseball)
A bunt is a batting technique in baseball or fastpitch softballOfficial Baseball Rulesdefine a bunt as follows: "A BUNT is a batted ball not swung at, but intentionally met with the bat and tapped slowly within the infield." To bunt, the batter loosely holds the bat in front of home plate and intentionally taps the ball into play. A properly executed bunt will create weak contact with the ball and/or strategically direct it, forcing the infielders to make a difficult defensive play to record an out. Technique The strategy in bunting is to ground the ball into fair territory, as far from the fielders as possible but within the infield. This requires not only physical dexterity and concentration, but also an awareness of the fielders' positions in relation to the baserunner or baserunners, their likely reactions to the bunt, and knowledge of the pitcher's most likely pitches. The bunt is typically executed by the batter turning his body toward the pitcher and sliding one hand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Screwball
A screwball is a baseball and fastpitch softball pitch that is thrown so as to break in the opposite direction of a slider or curveball. Depending on the pitcher's arm angle, the ball may also have a sinking action. The pitch is sometimes known as the scroogie or airbender. Carl Hubbell was one of the most renowned screwball pitchers in the history of Major League Baseball. Hubbell was known as the "scroogie king" for his mastery of the pitch and the frequency with which he threw it. Other famous screwball artists include Tug McGraw, inaugural Hall of Fame member Christy Matthewson, and Cy Young Award winners Mike Cuellar, Fernando Valenzuela, Mike Marshall, and Willie Hernández. Grip and action The baseball is held with the open end of the horseshoe shape (where the seams are closest together) facing upward. The thumb is placed just beneath the bottom of the horseshoe, the index finger is curled against the top of the thumb, forming a tight circle to the side of the b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riseball
In fastpitch softball, a rise ball is type of pitch that is thrown on an upward trajectory and with backspin in order to impart a rising motion. Two factors are primarily responsible for the effectiveness of the rise ball – movement and velocity. Pitchers rely on the movement of the rise ball to fool batters into swinging at pitches that appear to be in the strike zone but move up to and out of the upper part of the strike zone where they are more difficult to hit. Additionally the rise ball may be used in the lower strike zone to induce a batter to not swing at a pitch that they believe will drop out of the strike zone, but in fact travels through the zone causing the hitter to take a strike without swinging. Rise balls are high velocity pitches, generally thrown at speeds that match or are close to the pitcher’s fastball speed. At the women’s collegiate level, rise balls typically are thrown in a range of 60 to 70mph with the most dominant pitchers capable of speeds in e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stratford, Connecticut
Stratford is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It is situated on Long Island Sound at the mouth of the Housatonic River. Stratford is in the Bridgeport–Stamford–Norwalk Metropolitan Statistical Area. It was settled by Puritans in 1639. The population was 52,355 as of the 2020 census. It is bordered on the west by Bridgeport, to the north by Trumbull and Shelton, and on the east by Milford (across the Housatonic River). Stratford has a historical legacy in aviation, the military, and theater. History Founding and Puritan era Stratford was founded in 1639 by Puritan leader Reverend Adam Blakeman, William Beardsley, and either 16 families (according to legend) or approximately 35 families (suggested by later research) who had recently arrived in Connecticut from England seeking religious freedom. In 1639 the General Court in Hartford made reference to the town as the "new plantation at Pequannock". In 1640 the community was known as Cupheag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Changeup
A changeup is a type of pitch in baseball and fastpitch softball. The changeup is a staple off-speed pitch often used in a pitcher's arsenal, usually thrown to look like a fastball but arriving much more slowly to the plate. Its reduced speed coupled with its deceptive delivery is meant to confuse the batter's timing. It is meant to be thrown the same as a fastball, but farther back in the hand, which makes it release from the hand slower while still retaining the look of a fastball. A changeup is generally thrown to be 8–15 miles per hour slower than a fastball. If thrown correctly, the changeup will confuse the batter because the human eye cannot discern that the ball is coming significantly slower until it is around 30 feet from the plate. For example, a batter swings at the oncoming ball as if it were a 90 mph fastball, but instead the ball is coming in at 75 mph—this means they will be swinging too early to hit the ball well (also known as being "way out in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pitchers
In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw a walk. In the numbering system used to record defensive plays, the pitcher is assigned the number 1. The pitcher is often considered the most important player on the defensive side of the game, and as such is situated at the right end of the defensive spectrum. There are many different types of pitchers, such as the starting pitcher, relief pitcher, middle reliever, lefty specialist, setup man, and the closer. Traditionally, the pitcher also bats. Starting in 1973 with the American League(and later the National League) and spreading to further leagues throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the hitting duties of the pitcher have generally been given over to the position of designated hitter, a cause of some controversy. The Japanese Central Leagu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Softball At The 2020 Summer Olympics
Softball was featured at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo for the first time since the 2008 Summer Olympics. The tournament consisted of six teams. Baseball/softball was one of five sports added to the program of the 2020 Summer Olympics only. The first six opening round games were played at Fukushima Azuma Baseball Stadium in an effort to highlight Fukushima's recovery from the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, while the remaining games were played at Yokohama Stadium. Softball will not return in 2024. It was originally scheduled to be held in 2020, but on 24 March 2020, the Olympics were postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of this pandemic, the games were played behind closed doors. The opening match of the event between Australia and Japan meant that for the first time since 1996, the opening match of the summer Olympiad was not a football match. Competition format The softball tournament featured a single round-robin of the six teams in whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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