- May 24, 2010
- 93
- 8
Hi! It's my first thread in this forum and I must say this is the most helpful forum about fastpitch I have ever seen. Congrats!!
Before getting into the questions I would like to set the background. I live in Brazil and softball is not much popular around here, but we have an organized structure and follow the ISF rules. Both baseball and softball received strong influence from Japanese descendants and one of the most noticeable changes is the usage of rubber balls in amateur games. Up to last year, it was easy to find 12" rubber balls which were imported from Japan but for the moment they have just disappeared from the market. I was told that the reason for using them is because they are softer (but not that much!) and would avoid accidents (seems to me that such safety rule was first introduced by senior players in a time softball was just a backyard game in Brazil). We use slowpitch bats and they go ok with the rubber ball.
It's also important to say that although we have girls playing fastpitch, the majority of players are men and the sport is moving from recreational to a more competition game. So many pitchers started to practice windmill motion and are reaching good speed and control. For that reason and for the fact rubber balls are just disappearing from the market we want to move ahead to leather softballs and this is all about my questions:
- I notice in US there are softballs with different compressions and COR (.52 .47 .44 .40). I would like to know how the difference off compression and COR affect the game and which is used in fastpitch and which is used in slowpitch.
- Will a slowpitch bat get damaged if swung at a fastpitch leather softball?
- Also noticed there are synthetic leather safety softballs. How different are they from the other balls?
- In your opinion, what type of ball would provide a safe but still competitive game?
Sorry for the long post and thanks for the help!
Before getting into the questions I would like to set the background. I live in Brazil and softball is not much popular around here, but we have an organized structure and follow the ISF rules. Both baseball and softball received strong influence from Japanese descendants and one of the most noticeable changes is the usage of rubber balls in amateur games. Up to last year, it was easy to find 12" rubber balls which were imported from Japan but for the moment they have just disappeared from the market. I was told that the reason for using them is because they are softer (but not that much!) and would avoid accidents (seems to me that such safety rule was first introduced by senior players in a time softball was just a backyard game in Brazil). We use slowpitch bats and they go ok with the rubber ball.
It's also important to say that although we have girls playing fastpitch, the majority of players are men and the sport is moving from recreational to a more competition game. So many pitchers started to practice windmill motion and are reaching good speed and control. For that reason and for the fact rubber balls are just disappearing from the market we want to move ahead to leather softballs and this is all about my questions:
- I notice in US there are softballs with different compressions and COR (.52 .47 .44 .40). I would like to know how the difference off compression and COR affect the game and which is used in fastpitch and which is used in slowpitch.
- Will a slowpitch bat get damaged if swung at a fastpitch leather softball?
- Also noticed there are synthetic leather safety softballs. How different are they from the other balls?
- In your opinion, what type of ball would provide a safe but still competitive game?
Sorry for the long post and thanks for the help!
