Who plays softball or baseball?

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Played intramural softball a few years back in like 2006-2009
I'm guessing intramural is like coed/rec leagues, IE: 10 players, mix of men and women, slow pitch?

More recently than that, I played in a baseball city league in spring 2014. That was a lot tougher. Actual full speed pitching, and most of the players had either previously played at the varsity high school level, and you'd run into a couple players who had made it higher than that. Our player-coach pretty much played me for my glove and my defense in centerfield/leftfield. Hitting was pretty tough against those pitchers. Felt like a win when I could draw a walk or make contact and get on base.
Wow, sounds tough. How fast were those guys throwing?

Here's the glove I bought a few years ago, I've posted about it before bc I have it around when I watch movies usually. I throw lefty, but mainly bat right-handed competitively. I can switch-hit when it's casual/for fun

What size is that? About 12"? I assume it can't be much smaller if you're playing outfield with it. Anyway, looks nice, and in particularly good shape if you've been using it a few years.



The intramurals was slow pitch, and a fraternity league, so that one wasn't co-ed with all the funky rules.

The baseball one, I'd say on average pitchers were throwing in the mid-80s mph, upper 80s against several of the best pitchers.

My Rawlings is 11.5". It's not really an outfield glove, you're right. As a lefty I guess it'd only be classified as a pitcher's glove. It's called the "Rawlings Pro Preferred Series." Link. Liked that two-tone look, and I see it's discontinued now.

That Nokona of yours looks nice, dark brown one



Finally got around to taking a picture of the gloves, along with one that just arrived in the mail:



Ditto for the Wilson A2000 next to it.
That top middle Wilson glove looks strong, tough as hell.

Damn yall got me wanting to play some ball again. Ill have to see if theres some batting cages nearby. Our Pirates Cove closed down.



Pro Preferred, nice glove. Guess it's holding up great, then?

If you hit at all against mid-80s, that's pretty flippin' impressive.

Yeah, I don't have any two-tone models, but they can be pretty cool. The red/tan one you have is nice. I'm kinda partial to the black/blonde combo on some of the new Wilsons.

The Nokona's actually a very dark red (hence "Bloodline" I guess?), which makes it really eye-catching in person. But before this I tried (and returned) a dark brown one, which I think is usually the best glove color, in a v acuum. It was one of these. Broke in beautifully and felt really sturdy, but it was just too heavy.



That top middle Wilson glove looks strong, tough as hell.
We'll know in a couple years. The A2000s are just below the A2Ks in terms of quality, I think. This one's got SuperSkin on the back, so it's lighter. Think it should last a long time. The black Nokona feels like it would survive nuclear war, though.

I tried and returned one of the A2Ks. Thing felt like rubber. I'm sure it would've been great once broken in, but I couldn't below how thick and stiff it was brand new. You could run over some of these with a car (which some people actually do to help the break in process).



Im not a fan of the no net mitts unless pitching, which I never would be doing I always feared the closed mitts would make the ball roll out easier.



My irrational fear was always that the ball would go through the webbing, based off of maybe the two times I've ever seen it happen in an MLB. Why that would even apply when playing softball, I have no idea.

I liked basket webs pretty much exclusively before, but I've been coming around to some of the other styles, especially since they seem to be a little lighter, all things considered.



Bump! Almost that time of year. I'm positively giddy over the fact that we could be just a few weeks away from softball practice.

Anyone playing baseball or softball this year?



Not so big here in the UK but when I was growing up me and my friends played baseball a lot when we all went out to play at the local park then when we were older we were all obsessed with basketball so the baseball stopped. I still have my baseball bat but it's used now for *cough* home defence *cough* if needed.

As for in school, they only played softball during sports classes in high school and it was for the boys only! us girls had rounders, basically baseball made simple with a short wooden bat and under arm 'bowling'...




I enjoy playing baseball in the backyard, but I tore my labrum 34 months ago, and just had surgery last month, so physical activity like that has been out for a while.
Youch. didn't see this until now. How's it coming along? What kind of therapy do they have you doing?



Meanwhile, first softball game is Thursday. We've only gotten a couple of practices in, because the weather's been terrible, so we're probably going to be pretty rusty, but I expect some of the other teams will be, too.



I don't actually wear pants.
Youch. didn't see this until now. How's it coming along? What kind of therapy do they have you doing?
Pretty well. It's not there yet, but my hip is slowly getting better. I'm doing physical therapy, consisting of a lot of strengthening. After almost three years of the injury, my leg is rather weak, so the PTerapist is working on getting the hip moving and the strength back in it.

I hope to get back to physical activities, such as baseball and biking, once it fully heals.
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Thanks again, Mr Portridge.



Just bumping this. Spring leagues are over, Summer leagues begin next week. Softball season's a third of the way over already! It goes so fast.

Lots of fun so far. Our teams have been as good as they've ever been, though we played both playoffs shorthanded and got knocked out quick. Hoping we can breakthrough in one of these next ones.

I'm hitting fewer homers than I did early last year, though I hit a couple filling in for another team. But the average is up, which makes sense given some of the swing tweaks I've made. Hoping to find the sweet spot between the two in the Summer leagues, though, keeping that new high average without sacrificing any of the power.

Also sold one of the fancy gloves I bought last year (the black one with the red label in the pictures earlier). Finally just started using the Wilson A2000 in games; the ball still clangs off it a bit more than the really worn-in ones I was favoring before, but it's a bigger, thicker glove than those ones, so I figure it's worth putting up with that a little longer, and eventually it'll be better in all regards.



We don't play much softball or baseball in the UK, i did like playing netball for my team at school, our most popular sport here is football.



I'm a Rawlings basket glove guy. Top one is my most recent glove (13.5"), probably 20 years old and I took pretty good care of it. The middle pic (Dale Murphy!) is the first new glove I ever had. It was a gift for making the HS b-ball team. Unfortunately, I made the team as a catcher so that glove was pretty useless, but I still loved it. It's also pretty ratty/flimsy now but it's still fun to use. There is no padding left in so it stings a bit when if you catch one in the palm. The last one is my Grandpas old glove. It's a ton of fun to use but you ain't catching much without using two hands. Had to re-lace it after using it a few times.





Yeah, the 13.5" is kind of a monster. I broke it in using a softball so I never really intended to use it for baseball, but I have and it sucks. It's just too big and the ball gets lost in there or pops out. The beat up one, aka The Creature, I still use for baseball or if I'm in the infield for softball. I play in an over 40 baseball league and as a sub in a couple of wood bat softball leagues. I fell out of love with softball once the bat technology really took off. Not sure how it is where you play but everybody here just crushes it now. Pitchers are wearing full catchers gear (chest, legs, mask) in the field. It's silly.

If I'm just screwing around, non-competitive stuff, I use my Grandpas glove because it's just so much fun. Feels like you're in Eight Men Out.



Yeah, I know what you mean re: bats. It's not great. I play in a coed league so it's not too nuts, but there are a few people who shouldn't be in the league at all and when you combine that with the bat technology it can be silly. And you kinda have to do the same to compete; we've got a guy on our team who homered in like 37% of his at bats.

I wish there were more in-between leagues, though. Seems like it's either borderline beer league (with the way-to-good guys mixed in), or else pretty serious men's league baseball.

But hey, playing anything even close to baseball is a joy, so I'll take it.