Short answers, pulled from the story.
Softball was created by George Hancock, a reporter, on Thanksgiving Day, 1887, at the Farragut Boat Club in Chicago. Hancock called out "Play ball!" after a Yale alumnus threw a boxing glove that a Harvard fan swatted with a stick, and he developed a formal 17-inch ball and undersized bat within the following week.
Fast pitch uses a windmill underhand delivery allowing pitchers to throw at high speeds, with nine players per side and base stealing permitted. Slow pitch lobs the ball in an arc that must land in a designated area behind the plate, uses ten fielders, and heavily limits base stealing. Slow pitch surpassed fast pitch in overall popularity within a decade of earning formal recognition in 1953.
Women's fast-pitch softball was selected in 1991 to debut at the 1996 Summer Olympics. It was dropped for the 2012 Summer Olympics following a vote at the 117th IOC meeting in Singapore in July 2005, reinstated for the 2020 Summer Olympics (held in 2021), excluded again from the 2024 Summer Olympics, and is scheduled to return for the 2028 Summer Olympics.
The fastest pitch ever recorded in softball was 79.4 mph, thrown by Karlyn Pickens in May 2025 at the NCAA Division I softball tournament. At the 1996 Summer Olympics, one pitch reached 73.3 mph, and male fastpitch pitchers can approach 85 mph.
The name softball was coined by Walter Hakanson of the YMCA at a meeting of the National Recreation Congress in 1926, replacing a variety of regional names including "indoor baseball," "kitten ball," "diamond ball," "mush ball," and "pumpkin ball." The name had spread across the United States by 1930.
Sixteen-inch softball is a direct descendant of George Hancock's original 1887 game, played with a larger ball and no fielding gloves. It is played extensively in Chicago, where it originated, and in New Orleans, where it is called "Cabbage Ball" or "batter ball" and is popular in elementary and high schools. The International Softball Federation removed it from official rules in 2002, but it continues under American Softball Association rules.