Quality of college softball vs. other sports

I have a friend who told me recently that he thought softball was the least well-played sport in college. He pointed to the number of errors and mental mistakes, the level of athleticism.

Well, here, I'll quote:

If you really pay attention to what's going on, the girls don't have a clue how to play the game, and a LOT of the coaches don't know what they're doing, especially with situational stuff. If you watch college football, baseball, basketball, gymnastics, golf, tennis, track, cross country, volleyball, swimming, you walk away amazed at the athleticism and level of talent and play. I rarely feel that way after I watch a college softball game.

So what college sports do you feel are played at the highest level?

My response to the above is that what he's seeing is not the quality of play, but the difficulty of the sport itself.

Softball is one of the hardest sports, perhaps the hardest. There are many more opportunities to look foolish in softball than other sports. Hitting has been called the hardest thing in sports, and then hitters must take the field and make split-second fielding decisions and plays that are pressurized by base paths that are only 60 feet apart.

Compare that to swimming and track, which are simple sports. There is great athleticism, and it requires great work ethic, but how challenging is the competition itself? You just swim to one side and back as hard as you can. You never describe a track meet or swim meet as sloppy, but softball and baseball games are labeled that all the time. There's more opportunity to look bad or mess up.

Volleyball also is a much simpler game. It's the same half-dozen points/scenarios being played out over and over. I recently watched a JV volleyball game and was surprised at how entertaining it was and how long the points went. But I also concluded that the entertainment came from watching an easier sport. It's why volleyball is popular in PE classes. It's easier to reach a level of competency.

What do y'all think? How does softball rank among other sports?

Well, I don't know how it compares because softball and baseball are the only sports I ever watch. But I would probably agree with you if I did. Softball is so FAST. Waaaay more opportunities for mistakes. When I watch a college softball game the last thing I usually question is their athleticism.

"...It's a simple game. You hit the ball, you throw the ball, you catch the ball...."

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Sometimes I see things that make me go wow! Other times I think, how the heck did she miss that. (usually has to do with balls popping out of gloves)

I find I only really watch the sports DD plays, SB, Beisbol and basketball and within those sports there are teams I watch for their athleticism and some I just pass on. Perhaps your friend just doesn't have an interest in SB and thus it's never going to be very good.

If I was watching Fast pitch softball for the first time, I would agree with the "friends" assessment. A lot of times I invite friends to watch DD's club team(18 gold) play at showcase or big tourney and get the same response. Having been around the game for 6 years + and really love watching the game I have accepted the way girls play the game. I will say when I go watch my friends son's play I see the same amount of errors and same running mistakes...Coaching is equal.

I would definitely not hold up volleyball as simple the basics are simple execution is really hard if the points are long odds are the play is terrible, sure you could have a few long points but most should be completed in just a few volleys, problem is there are not enough truly quality setters so you get long points because hitters can't let go.

If you think football is played at a high level breakdown film with a college coach after a game. It is the same process any one of the 11 players can make a mistake it leads to a score, sometimes it is just harder to tell with all the people on the field, it's easy to see a corner get burnt but it could be the safeties fault or maybe even a linebacker who did not blitz giving QB more time could be a dozen things but we just all say the corner blew it, because we aren't real students of the game, we just watch and say it's high quality.

There is also a big difference between team and individual sports in swimming and track you are racing against each other but in the end you are racing yourself because of your training your know what your body is physically capable of in terms of time and you are either competitive or not, you can go out there and run the fastest you have ever run and that is the best you can do maybe the next guy over was only 90% but if his 90% is faster than your 110% you still lose, so you train to see if you can push your body to do more at some point you simply can't.

Back to our game, softball is just really intricate, there are so many "games within the game" that one mistake is amplified. As others have mentioned the speed of play is just amazing any hesitation means a bad result. I think we all know from watching the game at the youth level that college softball (say in the SEC or WCWS finals) is very high in quality. Now college teams are not going to beat team USA (unless you tick off Angela Tincher) but that team represents the best 15 to 20 out of our whole country. Basically it's OK to let your friend think what he wants to it just does not make him right.

People who don't appreciate softball, really don't understand the speed and mental aspects of playing the game. Baseball is considered one of the most difficult sports, and yet softball is played at an even faster pace on a much smaller field. Quick thinking, and even quicker execution are required. The sports science videos are a great illustration of that.

Now throw in slapping and bunting which is a much bigger part of softball than baseball and it adds yet another layer of complexity.

Most every sport has a physical and technical aspect, but only a few of them also require split second decision making by 9 different people at the same time with a wide number of variables.

I find the closer you get to any sport, the more you come to appreciate the nuances that go into them. DD started playing field hockey last summer, which I did not get, but I'm learning to appreciate it more. I still don't understand why they can only use one side of a perfectly good stick, but maybe I'll figure that out next season.

Was at a game recently and someone stated that they should really move the bases back further so the defense has more time to make plays. I explained that they did, it is called baseball.

CoogansBluff said:

I have a friend who told me recently that he thought softball was the least well-played sport in college. He pointed to the number of errors and mental mistakes, the level of athleticism.

Well, here, I'll quote:

If you really pay attention to what's going on, the girls don't have a clue how to play the game, and a LOT of the coaches don't know what they're doing, especially with situational stuff. If you watch college football, baseball, basketball, gymnastics, golf, tennis, track, cross country, volleyball, swimming, you walk away amazed at the athleticism and level of talent and play. I rarely feel that way after I watch a college softball game.

So what college sports do you feel are played at the highest level?

My response to the above is that what he's seeing is not the quality of play, but the difficulty of the sport itself.

Softball is one of the hardest sports, perhaps the hardest. There are many more opportunities to look foolish in softball than other sports. Hitting has been called the hardest thing in sports, and then hitters must take the field and make split-second fielding decisions and plays that are pressurized by base paths that are only 60 feet apart.

...

What do y'all think? How does softball rank among other sports?

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There are a few factors here:

- The game is highly fast with expected reaction times which are frankly REALLY unrealistic a lot of the time. We have a DD of a local MLB player who plays 3rd base for us. Her dad doesn't get to many of her activities but he came out last season and was amazed at how close we ask her to be to the bat and still expect her to make plays on hard hit balls.
- I am surprised he included baseball on the list - softball and baseball are situational spot athletic sports - in other words you don't get to show your athleticism ALL the time. You can be the most athletic center fielder in the world, but if the ball doesn't come your way, well there is no opportunity to show what you can do - and you might only bat 3-4 times a game and you might not get on to show your base running skills if you have them. Same goes for everyone else with the exception of the pitcher/catcher.
- If you are used to baseball, the situational softball decisions can be something hard to get used to. Shorter bases, slapping, bunting, pitch type - these all effect how decisions are made and how fast decisions are made. Hits back to the pitcher in baseball and a pitcher can basically wander over to first to make the play... softball you have to get it over to 1st quick because even a moderately fast player can beat out a slow roller.
- It depends a lot on what games they are watching as well. If you are not watching the top level games, there are some rotten teams out there at big schools.
- The depth of college coaches is clearly fairly poor. There are some great ones out there, but again it is a developing field. Same for the depth of skills coaches (see below)

You also have to remember that fastpitch is a relatively young sport. You can argue that only 20 years ago, fastpitch was primarily a Californian sport being played primarily by Californian girls. PAC 10/12 dominated and it wasn't until 2005 that a Eastern team won (Michigan who had a lot of west coast girls from memory). For example, Florida didn't go to fastpitch FULLY in high school until this century, so we are really only seeing a second or third full generation of players coming through in this state who only know fast pitch. There isn't 100+ years of traditions or coaching studies or well anything. Fastpitch has really only started stealing techniques from baseball in bulk in the last few years.

I can find 30 baseball pitching coaches who are considered VERY, VERY good by people I trust (primarily people who also have girls in softball I know). Just recently I was asked for a recommendation for a pitching coach for one of the girls in our org because it wasn't working out as a personality fit with her current coach (who is VERY good and teaches IR, etc). I couldn't come up with ONE PC who I could honestly recommend for softball (long list of bad ones though). And I live in what is a REALLY strong softball hotbed in South Florida. And I know EVERYONE locally.

“Hardest sport” is relative to whichever sport you’re participating in. Try telling a golfer a baseball is harder to hit or a tight end a baseball is harder to catch when you don’t have a 250 lb linebacker about to take your head off. I LOVE watching fastpitch softball, but I wouldn’t call it the hardest sport, nor would I say it’s sloppy by any means.

In fastpitch/baseball, more than any other popular sport,
poor decision-making cannot be overcome by sheer athleticism.