Softball - athletic team game with the ball (weighing 180 g) - a kind of baseball - more precisely, its nearest relative. Indoor baseball, softball later called, was invented by the journalist George Hancock in 1887, appeared in Chicago at the end of the XIX century as a form of winter training baseball. Originally intended solely for the premises, the game soon came to the open areas and is widely used at first in America and then abroad in Europe, where it brought the Americans during the Second World War. First softball played exclusively by men, but eventually the game became more and more like women primarily after formation in 1933, the Amateur Softball Association of America. It is also believed that softball became adaptation of baseball for women. The first official match for softball was held in 1820 in New York. With the 60-ies of the biennial championship of the world. The game is distributed in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Australia, Japan, Cuba. This sport has achieved Olympic status in 1996 in Atlanta, which won an American. The strongest is the American League MLB. It set the tone in Arizona and New York Yankees. more info >>