Softball

I've seen a few Blogs about baseball, but I've seen virtually none on my favorite sport EVER, softball! Or basketball, for that matter, but that's for another day.

At the schools I've attended, softball has always been one of the biggest sports. At my Catholic middle school, there's virtually no competition between schools. It's all parent volunteers, and our school has never been up there until my sixth grade. Suddenly, we had awesome teams all the way around. Then my mom and my friend's dad coached and we were a force to be reckoned with. I played basketball all three years, volleyball for two, and in sixth grade I got into softball. I started playing shortstop. One day, I was goofing around with my friend and I started to pitch, and then my coach saw and started playing me. I ended up being our pitcher for three years - I only missed one game ever because of a pulled tendon and my mom took me out after my first inning and we had to put in our back-up. I'm up to 50 mph, and now I play pitcher and second base for my JV high school team. At my middle school, we were division champs three years running, and for high school we were league champs.

Softball has been a huge part of my life, but I've only been playing for four years. You have no idea how competitive this sport is. I couldn't believe I made the JV team, because everyone had been playing since they were four and five years old, and I didn't start until I was twelve. I only knew how to pitch, I sucked everywhere else. But I caught on to another position really quickly, and I love it! Second base is fun, but I get this amazing feeling when I pitch. People say it's the hardest position to play, and it's all mental, but I don't get why so many people I know get freaked out at the mound when the other team's screaming. I love it when all the cheering and jaunts start up, and then BAM! Get a good fastball or change-up in there to shut em up. I love that battle with the other team, it's great.

There's this... team bond with softball that I could never sense from watching baseball. Softball teams are usually really close and there's no ego. When you watch college or pro softball, you know everyone's there for the love of the game and there's no ego or "inner-politics." That quality is so rare to find in sports today. College softball is one of my favorite sports to watch. It's actually pretty popular where I live! But when you watch, you just get that same feeling that everyone's out there for the game, not the publicity. I stopped watching baseball because of all the ego that some players have. The same with mens' basketball, it just got worse and worse every year. But that's another Blog.

So I'm curious if there's any other SOFTBALLERS out there, fans or players of the game! And, if not, maybe this will at least convince a few people to watch a game if you're flipping around the channels. College softball is great! And if you guys are out there calling it a "girl's sport," the nicey-nice version of baseball, you have no idea what goes on in that field. You should see our team play against our rivals, and then you'll know the true meaning of competition. I'm a competitive person by nature, softball is just the perfect way for me to release all of that energy and ambition.