UMM.... Hillhouse take a look at this! Hello Elbow!?!

[CoachJD]

But it's not just men's softball that has declined, all sports are losing numbers. Drive by any park on a weekend and you'll see it empty.

I wonder if fewer people are playing or there are just so many options that no one sport is dominating in the same way. Kinda like TV ratings. There are so many options, not just on cable but with streaming services, DVR, all of it that we'll never again see some of the insane TV rating numbers we used to see, but it doesn't mean people aren't watching something.

 

[HunterMO]

From what I can tell, no one replaced that last generation. Pitching is hard, and being good at it is even harder. Starting to learn to pitch in your mid to late 20's ack!!. Being in the suburbs of NYC there are plenty of pitching coaches but I would need to drive 45 minutes or more to pay less than $80 and hour (if you can get a time slot).

At least here that’s what happened. There was a certain point where the “old guys” said screw it and stopped building the next generation. Then the sport started to die off locally.

I learned to pitch at 34 in an effort to better help my DD as she learned. Her PC at the time was a life long mens pitcher who no longer competed. His ability to break down pitching and almost make it simple allowed both DD and myself to learn. The more I learned the more addicted to it I became. I went from thinking FP pitching was magic to having a great understanding of it. But, without DD wanting to pitch and then lucking into that PC I would have never even known about men’s fastpitch. I was fortunate in that he would answer my questions, review my videos, and even gave me a few lessons for only whatever it cost him to rent that hour in the facility (which I will say it was basically free for me).

After a few years of just practicing and learning I found out there was a local fastpitch league. I joined up and had a lot of fun. Even had myself a drop ball that worked “most” of the time. And the other times were hit deep in the OF. I’ll be honest and say the first few games were terrifying but in the end I had a great time. The problem was that it was only 4 or 5 teams and so little guys played that teams were constantly sharing players. A couple times a Dad would have to loan their 13-year old who played baseball to be in RF. And you would have a team that took it too seriously and another who didn’t care at all (which was a bit more my speed).

Due to work, playing men’s league hockey and being a 3-kid taxi service I haven’t kept up practicing and didn’t play this Summer. But I’m glad that I took the time to learn. Worst case I can now give DD a decent BP session.

 

[Hillhouse]

How many men's fastpitch teams would you guess there are?

I really enjoyed the opportunity to play with the Long Beach Nighthawks. And get to play with the different rules of men's pitching.
Catching for men's pitching and catching for women's pitching the rules for women's pitching in my opinion are definitely restrictive. People would get freaked out if women's game could throw with the same pitching less' restrictive as men's.

I forgot to answer this question RAD, sorry.

I don't know how many teams remain. It's a fraction of what used to be. But, the ISC (International Softball Congress, exclusive Men's FP organization) is the most prestigious championship tournament. In it's heyday, there was 48 teams in the double elim tournament. And there was probably another 400 teams that wished they had got in. Now days, there's 32 teams. The ASA National is usually lucky to get 16 teams, and all the teams in ASA play in the ISC. These tournaments are for the top level teams, consisting of the top players from all over the world. Then there's NAFA (North American Fastpitch Association) which started out as exclusive to men's FP but has since expanded where the money is: Girls softball. In NAFA, there's 3 different divisions and the number of teams depends on the location of the tournament. I'd estimate there's 80 teams or so between the 3 divisions, give or take.

There are still plenty of teams all around the country that don't choose to play in a championship tournament. There's still 11-12 teams in the league here in Nebraska, I don't think any of them went to a National tournament. I still see a lot of teams in California on some of the websites I read.