[greymule]

Steve:

Softball was obviously derived from baseball. I am not an expert in "rounders," but I don't know of a single softball rule specifically chosen from that game. A little research on rounders reveals only a general and rather vague structural correlation to baseball (or softball)—about like that between rugby and football. The rounders rules I am familiar with are completely foreign to baseball. The similarities between softball and baseball are far too great for the two games to have evolved separately from the same ancient source.

For that matter, football, rugby, ice hockey, polo—games where the teams defend goals on the opposite ends of a field—undoubtedly had their origins in some form of soccer. This does not make those sports in any way inferior.

Some softball people are sensitive about the common notion that softball is somehow a lesser game than baseball—that baseball takes more skill to play and to umpire—and resent it when baseball people disparage softball. ("He was a good ballplayer, but at his age and weight he should be playing softball.") I think this is the root of the desire to establish softball as owing little to baseball.

I would add that as much as I love baseball, focused on it as a player for many years, and respect the enormous work that has gone into interpreting and clarifying its rules, I prefer to watch college softball over MLB.