Go Bob’s Angels!!

Okay, I know those that have known me for years will be hard press to believe this next statement. Paul and I have become avid Softball fans this summer.  Sister Cindy aka “The Kid” plays on two different teams and is also an Umpire here in Clarksville. You now find us at the ball park several times a week to either cheer the teams or to simply support and yes harass the Umpire.

Bob’s Angels is the Women’s team that she is currently the pitcher. These ladies have really pulling together as a team and their small support group is there to keep the encouragement going strong. It was very exciting the last game because “The Kid” and Chris “hit the Dirt Girl” both hit home runs. We have really enjoyed seeing this team play and develop over the season to date.

Paul and I are getting to know all the different teams during the week, between the Church League teams (Men and Women) to the Men’s League. We are actually becoming quite knowledgeable at Softball.  I had believed what I had been told that Softball was derived from baseball. So I did some researching to be more knowledgeable in front of “the Kid”.

The sport’s first game actually came about because of a football game. The history of softball dates back to Thanksgiving Day of 1887.   Several alumni sat in the Chicago, IL Farragut Boat Club anxiously awaiting the outcome of the Yale vs. Harvard football game. When Yale was announced as winner, a Yale alumnus playfully threw a boxing glove at a Harvard supporter. The Harvard fan swung at the balled-up glove with a stick, and the rest of the group looked on with interest. George Hancock, a reporter for the Chicago Board of Trade, jokingly called out “Play ball!” and the first softball game commenced with the football fans using the boxing glove as a ball and a broom handle in place of a bat.

The Farragut Boat Club decided to officially devise their own set of rules, and the game quickly leaked to outsiders in Chicago and, eventually, throughout the rest of the Midwestern U.S. As the history of softball shaped itself over the next decade, the game went under the guise of “indoor baseball,” “kitten baseball,” “diamond ball,” “mush ball,” and “pumpkin ball.” In 1926, Walter Hakanson coined the term “softball” while representing the YMCA at a National Recreation Congress meeting, and by 1930 the term stuck as the sport’s official name.

Today, softball is one of the most popular sports in the country and an estimated 40 million Americans engage in at least one softball game each year. Because it can be played on either a field or an indoor arena, softball games are played year round, and involve teams with players as young as 8 years old and some players over 60 years in age. Softball is sometimes played by co-recreational leagues where both women and men play on the same teams, but the rules are generally modified to reduce physical inequalities between the sexes.  So there you see, you can teach an old Missouri Mule something new and sports related. Can you believe it…?

Go Angels!! Swing it Low, Swing it High, Hit that ball, Go! Go! Go!