Softball vs. Little League

As I further my prolific softball career, I'm noticing that the sport is incredibally similar to little league baseball.

First of all, the fields are the exact same dimensions as opposed to the larger regulation baseball fields.

The bases are 45 feet, you can't lead off, you can't leave the base until the ball hits the bat, etc., etc.

This makes the game a lot more boring. There's no thread of getting picked off and the pitcher could care less how fast the runner on first is. I need to look at instituting some sort of stealing policy in softball. The pitcher can fake wind-up or something and it's the runner's risk if he wants to just take off whenever he (or she) feels like it.

The teams are named after sponsors, usually a company team, or in little league, some company that has forked over $300 for uniforms in the spirit of cheap advertising and tax write-offs.

The games are full of errors, not only in the infield, but in the outfield as well.
You can turn a single into a home run by simply not stopping at any base and forcing the defensive team to make a play, which is very risky, but I've seen it done several times this year. Very similar to the infamous Byron Ong/Todd Sechrist "bunt home run," where they would bunt it down the third baseline and just keep running until they crossed home plate.

A line drive to the gap can easily be a homerun, whereas in baseball you can easily get torched at second base just trying to stretch a single into a double.



There's more moms at softball games than little league games (albeit it's because their husbands are playing, not because their sons are playing).

Half the team has no idea what they're doing, and just like those 10-year-old kids who's fathers force them to play, some of the players don't even want to be at the games. They just showed up because their co-worker begged them when he realized he didn't have enough players for the game. This causes for (a) some horrible play in right field and at the catcher position, (b) lots of jeans on the field and (c) pissed off teammates that can't believe they are playing with such horrible players.

Based on these facts it leaves me with the decision of whether I should quit playing softball and go back to baseball, where I would have to spend about six hours every Sunday standing in the outfield sun, or continue to play softball, where I can't really take anything seriously.

Last night my team (21st Century) won 24-14, similarly to my historic little league team "Sundek (concrete resurfacing)," which was an offensive juggernaut in the Rainier Valley Little League in South Seattle.