The 2012 National Pro Fastpitch season was the ninth season of professional softball under the name

National Pro Fastpitch National Pro Fastpitch (NPF), formerly the Women's Pro Softball League (WPSL), was a professional women's softball league in the United States. The teams battled for the Cowles Cup. The WPSL was founded in 1997 and folded in 2001; the NPF revive ...

(NPF) for the only professional women's

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 Hanc ...

league in the United States. From 1997 to 2002, NPF operated under the names Women's Pro Fastpitch (WPF) and Women's Pro Softball League (WPSL). The 2012 season is especially notable because due to weather and scheduling issues, the NPF Championship Series was not completed and no Cowles Cup champion was named.

Milestones and events

NPF announced the

Carolina Diamonds The Carolina Diamonds, formerly known as the NPF Diamonds, Tennessee Diamonds, Rockford Thunder and Texas Thunder, was a women's softball team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Since the 2004 season, they have played as a member of National Pro ...

as a new team for the 2012 season, owned by Amelia Nemeth and husband Alan Demaske . Carolina replaced the NPF Diamonds, a travelling team operated by NPF. The team was headquartered in

Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...

and played its home games in various venues throughout the Carolinas.

Teams, cities and stadiums

Player acquisition

College draft

The 2012 NPF College Draft was held in the Peabody Hotel in

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

on March 7 at 5:00 CST.

USSSA Pride The USSSA Pride are a professional softball team based in Viera, Florida and a member of the WPF - Women's Professional Fastpitch League, U.S. Founded in 2009. They previously played in National Pro Fastpitch (NPF) from 2009 to 2019. They play ...

selected pitcher Brittany Mack of

LSU Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 near ...

as the first overall pick.

Notable transactions

League standings

Source:

NPF Championship

With only four teams in the league, every team qualified for the postseason. Teams are seeded by the final standings. No. 1 seed

faced No. 4 seed

Akron Racers The Akron Racers were a women's softball team based in Akron, Ohio. They have moved to Cleveland and been renamed the Cleveland Comets in 2018. The team was started by Joey Arietta in 1999 to participate in the Women's Pro Softball League (WPSL). ...

in one best-of-three semifinal series, while the No. 2 seed Chicago Bandits faced the No. 3 seed

in another. The winners were scheduled to advance to the best-of-three championship series. After winning their semifinal series, the Bandits and Pride played the first game of the championship series, with the Bandits winning 2-1. On Sunday August 26, the start of game was delayed for hours due to rain. After one out in the first inning, the field was deemed unplayable, and the game was cancelled. No makeup game was scheduled and the series was ended without naming a champion. Conflicting comments were made regarding the possibility of finishing the series on Monday. Citing owners' costs and players' travel obligations, NPF commissioner

Cheri Kempf Cheri or Chéri may refer to: People Given name * Cheri Blauwet (born 1980), American wheelchair racer * Cheri Dennis (born 1979), American singer * Cheri DiNovo (born 1950), Canadian United Church minister and social democratic politician * ...

said that "The Bandits had six players that could not change plans, including tarting pitcherMonica Abbott going to Japan" and,"I can say that the championship wasn't complete, and it wasn't complete because Chicago stated it had six players that could not finish. So therefore, I don't feel like that the right thing to do is to award the championship on one game." However, Bandits owner

Bill Sokolis Bill(s) may refer to: Common meanings * Banknote, paper cash (especially in the United States) * Bill (law), a proposed law put before a legislature * Invoice, commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer * Bill, a bird or animal's beak Plac ...

said,"We could have put nine players on the field,". On her blog Monica Abbott wrote that no one asked her to change her flight to Japan, but that she "would have done so in a heartbeat." NPF announced that a committee would be formed to make recommendations to avoid unfinished championships in the future.

Annual awards

On August 22 NPF hosted a banquet in

Rosemont, Illinois Rosemont is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Located immediately northwest of Chicago, as of the 2010 census it had a population of 4,202. The village was incorporated in 1956, though it had been settled long before that. Whi ...

, at which the league's annual awards were announced and the All-NPF Team was named:

Award notes

References

External links

* Softball teams 2012 in women's softball 2012 in American women's sports Softball in the United States