How did softball originate?
Excerpt from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softball The first version of softball was invented in Chicago in 1887 by George Hancock, a reporter for the Chicago Board of Trade, as a winter version of baseball. The game, known as indoor baseball, was first played at the Farragut Boat Club. Hancock took a boxing glove and tied it into a ball. A broom handle was used as a bat. The ball, being soft, was fielded barehanded rather than with gloves like those which had been introduced to baseball in 1882. The Farragut Club soon set rules for the game, which spread quickly to outsiders. In 1895 Lewis Rober, Sr. of Minneapolis organized outdoor games as exercise for firefighters; this game was known as kitten ball (after the first team to play it) or diamond ball. Rober’s version of the game
