Olympic sport since 1996
There is little soft
about Olympic softball. One pitch at Atlanta was clocked at 118 kilometres per
hour (73.3 mph). Considering the pitcher stands 13.1 metres (43 feet) from the
batter, and the hardest-throwing baseball pitchers throw 160 kilometres per hour
(99.4 mph) from 18.4 metres (60 feet), softball batters have essentially the
same time to react as their baseball counterparts.
In addition, a softball is as hard as a baseball. The only difference being
the size; a softball is 30.4cm (12 inches) in circumference and a baseball is
22.8cm (9 inches).
