ANCIENT ORIGINS

TIFF BETWEEN TOFFS STARTS THE SOFTBALL ROLLING

From a tiff between Yale and Harvard rivals involving a stick and a boxing glove, softball, now played by some 20 million people worldwide but confined to women at the Olympic Games, has come a long way.

The tiff, between a Yale graduate celebrating a football victory and a rival from defeated Harvard, took place at the Farragout Boating Club in Chicago. Yale man threw glove, Harvard man hit it with stick and so a sport was born as an indoor alternative to baseball in the late part of the 19th century. The Second World War helped to spread the game as soldiers brought it from the US but the sport found its greatest following among women.

Australia held its first women's interstate championship in 1947 and Melbourne staged the first world championship in 1965, when the hosts beat the US 1-0.

Originally known as kitten-ball and mush-ball, softball is a high-scoring game in its slow-pitch form, which requires pitchers to throw the ball in an arc. However, Olympic softball is fast-pitch, where pitches are often exceed 100kph.

Softball remains the most popular team participation sport in the US, served by more than 110 national federations affiliated with the International Softball Federation. It began with ten players a side, including four outfielders to help to counter the heavy hitting.