Softball

Well with the news that softball and baseball are being cut from the Olympics in 2012, and CMac's blog post about his adventures in softball I figured I run with the same topic today.

The chem department has a rather large participation in softball down here. In fact there are 10 teams that are chemistry or chem related, we all play on Wednesday nights, and every time it's a double-header. All in all it's a good system, but in my opinion that's where the good planning ends. There are a few odd rules/things about softball in this university league:

1. They use an actual strike zone, not really a bad idea, but subject to errors in calls. For those that don't know, the U of A used a mat that extended home plate, as long as a pitch landed on the mat it was a strike, not to hard to miss a call that way.
2. The count starts at 1-1 (one strike and one ball). This it seems was decided to speed up, and I'm still not sure on how the rules work on "fouling out", it seems that there is one free foul ball, but it's not really clear to me
3. If the play at home is close, you have to slide. Sounds like a dumb rule to me, but thinking of how competitive some of the guys are I guess this is to keep people from running over the catcher. Though once again the U of A idea with the line to cross (rather than touching the plate, is a lot safer).
4. One nice idea the U of A had was to put a line in the outfield, about 10 meters behind the infield. No matter who was up to bat the outfield could not move in past that line until the ball was hit. The idea being to give girls and weaker batters a chance to get a hit. No such rule is in place down here. Last Wednesday we just played a practice game and even there some of the guys were right up to the edge of the infield, to ensure that a girl didn't get a hit (I really don't like that at all, to me it shows a lack of class).
5. Finally in order to pack 4 softball fields into the lot that they have they chose to do something that is...well damn stupid is the only way to describe it. The outfields are in fact shared between two fields! So if a powerful hitter comes up the other outfield has to watch for players and balls crossing into them. In fact one time I fielded a ball in another fields infield, at the same time as there was play going on in that field! All in all, not a very bright idea in the land of litigation...

Anyway that's all for now. I need to get some rest, after a day spent paddling a canoe down river (though into a stiff head wind) I'm a bit sore. Go figure, it's not like I'm a cyclist with tiny little arms...oh wait I am ;)