What is the difference between baseball and softball?

The differences are structural rather than a matter of degree. A softball is about 12 inches in circumference against a baseball's 9, and despite the name it is not soft. Softball fields are smaller, with bases 60 feet apart rather than 90 and outfield fences typically 200 to 250 feet away rather than 300 to 400. Pitching is underhand from a flat circle 43 feet from the plate in college and international fastpitch, rather than overhand from a raised mound 60 feet 6 inches away. Games run seven innings rather than nine. Bats are typically lighter and, at most levels, composite or aluminum rather than wood.

The perception that softball is a gentler version of baseball does not survive the physics. A fastpitch softball pitch at 70 miles per hour from 43 feet gives the batter roughly the same reaction time as a 95 mile per hour baseball pitch from the major league distance, and the rise ball, a pitch that appears to climb because of backspin, has no baseball equivalent. Slowpitch softball, the recreational variant with high arcing pitches and ten fielders, is the version most adults have played and is the source of the reputation.

The sport's history explains the split. Softball began in Chicago in 1887 as an indoor winter game for baseball players, and it spread as a recreational and women's sport through the twentieth century. Title IX after 1972 drove its growth in American colleges, and it became the principal competitive diamond sport for women while baseball remained the men's sport, a division that is convention rather than rule, since women play baseball and men play softball at various levels. Softball was an Olympic sport from 1996 through 2008, dropped, and restored for 2020 and 2028.