Baseball and Softball

Compare and Contrast Baseball and softball are similar in many ways but at the same time they are very different. To begin with, they are both played on a ball field, known to most baseball or softball players as the ballpark. The ball field for both consist of four bases that form a square, also known as a diamond. On a baseball field the bases are ninety feet apart, compared to sixty or sixty-five feet on a softball diamond. Both are played with a bat and ball; however, the bats, same in shape but not in ize, and balls, different in sizes and some times color, are as much alike as not. The bats for baseball are made out of a solid piece of wood for major league players and softball bats are made mostly of aluminum or a composite material, carbon fiber. Both are made with a narrow end, grip end, and taper up into a two and a half inch diameter barrel, hitting end, for baseball, and only two and a quarter inch diameter in softball. A base ball is about the size of an adult fist, nine inches in circumference and is hrown hard, pitched, by the pitcher in pretty much a straight line up to eighty to ninety miles an hour to a batter that is trying to hit the ball in play. A softball is about the size of a grapefruit, twelve inches in circumference and is pitched in an arcing angle and much slower. Both are made with a rubber or cork center, wound in yarn and covered with a cowhide with red stitching, but the leather on a baseball is always white where a softball usually is yellow but can be white too. They are played with the same objective of scoring the most runs by hitting a ball thrown by a player on the fielding team, the pitcher, to players on the opposing team, batting team, taking turns trying to hit the ball with a bat and get themselves all the way Josh Girt Page 2 Eng. 085 around the bases to home plate to score runs before getting out three times which can be ccomplished in many ways that are the same in both games. There is a given amount of innings which is a total of nine innings for baseball, and softball is only played for seven innings. Teams switch between bating and fielding after the fielding team makes three outs; furthermore, one at bat by each team constitutes an inning. As you can tell that these games, sports, are similar in lots of ways and at the same time are very different.