[greymule]

Men's and women's FP were once very popular here in central New Jersey, but SP began attracting players in the early 1960s, and within 10 years FP (as well as semipro baseball) was dead. Some of the old FP players told me that the pitchers got so good that no one could hit them, and games with 17, 18, 19, 20 strikeouts per side didn't seem as much fun as the action-filled SP games being played on the other fields. So the young guys began opting for the then-better-balanced SP game.

I remember that in the early days of SP, the pitchers tried to throw as flat (fast) as they could within the rules. However, they soon learned that the high arc was harder to hit than a medium-speed fastball, and by the middle 1960s the game was pretty much what it is today, except that they used wooden bats and dead balls.

Apparently some men's FP survived in certain areas of the state, but I was never aware of its existence. Women's FP, as far as I know, has completely disappeared.

FP games were commonly 1-0, while in SP we regularly see 40 runs total per game. (Or 50 or 60—last year I tallied total runs in the evening triple headers, and we were routinely above 120, even with many mercy-shortened games). The game seems to be healthiest when 12 to 18 runs total is the norm. Maybe as SP gets ever more out of control with the live balls and juiced bats and ridiculous scores, FP will enjoy a revival.