re: Do college softball players do any conditioning at all?

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because some of the softballs i've seen have dimples and not seams.

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That is because you NOTHING about fastpitch. Slow pitch uses balls with lower seams that a fastpitch softball so pitchers can create movement. The only dimmpled softballs I have used or seen was our practice balls.

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You ignored the fact the little league players pitch from a mound ~45 ft away and throw the equivalent of 90+ mph pitches. Could they, too, hit a college/MLB pitchers since the pitches have movement and are coming in comparably fast?

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Little league baseball pitchers, just like 14U softball pitchers don't have the command and pitches than that of college baseball/MLB pitchers and college fastpitch pitchers. Not sure wth you are talking about comparing a little league pitcher to a college pitcher??

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Do softballs move as much as baseball do? Not do they move at all, do they move as much? The average spin rate for a baseball pitcher throwing 92 mph is 2200 rpm. The average spin rate for a softball pitcher is 1200 rpm. Not sure how you're going to reconcile that argument but I welcome you to try.

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Sure it can spin more, but how do you reconcile that a baseball has gravity helping the pitch, whereas fastpitch pitchers don't have a mound?

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Is it easier to hit a ball with a circumfrence of 12.13 inches or a ball with a circumfrence of 9 inches?

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Fastpitch softballs "circumference" is 12"

Bat weight is based on the player. Are you forgetting that men have stronger upper body strength? Why shouldn't they swing a heavier bat?
And my daughter hasn't used a 28 oz bat since 14U! 31.2 oz is the average weight of fastpitch bats for women over 16!

It you read the article I posted you would understand that

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45. My point is that if you ask the average American who Jenny Finch is no one is gonna know who you are talking about.

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As an olympian and the face of the sport, i think she is more recognizable than Shohei Ohtani (you brought him up. Not me).
She was the face of womens softball for 10 years (college and 2 olympics).

I understand that she has been retired for a decade. But come on. Youre 45 and you had no clue who jenny finch was?
I have no clue who Shohei ohtani is because he is on the wrong coast and has never played Atlanta.

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Don't know why you're getting downvoted. This is 100% truth. For years I've heard the argument that hitting a MLB pitcher is the hardest thing in sports and they cite batting average, which is dumb. The overwhelming majority of at bats have contact with the ball at least once. The difficult part is hitting the ball where there isn't a defender close enough to make a play. The rules of the game (number of defenders on the field) is what drives the lack of success in getting a "hit", not inability to make contact with the ball.

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Ive seen people who never held a bat in their hand reach pitches 70-80 mph in their first session.

I loved Pros versus Joes where they always claimed that hitting the ball is the toughest thing to do (and then none of the contestants failed to hit the ball... lol)

MLB players have an 80% success rate making contact with the pitch.
The very best pitchers in all of baseball have a whiff rate of 25% (75% success making contact from the hitter).

Baseball has the best journalists who like to tell yarns about the good ol days and provide anecdotes without any evidence. Lol. And the sheeple adopt and repeat it without understanding what a batting average even means.

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I have no clue who Shohei Ohtani is because he is on the wrong coast and has never played Atlanta.

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Ok then let me use an example of Jake deGrom who has also be clocked at 102. Jenny Finch may have been the "face of the sport" but I guarantee you that 90% of the population still doesn't know who she is.

When are you going to talk following with the discussion and not make assumptions?

It's amazing how all of you keep jumping around with the point that I made. Comprehension is starting to become a lost art.

Let's have some qualifiers.

Fastballs?

Offspeed?

Breaking balls?

This thread was kind of mean from the start, and while it is true that there are more fatties in NCAA softball than NCAA baseball (percentage wise), you have to know that someone will come on here defending them to the death.

Now the discussion has morphed as it always does when someone is losing an argument, the goal posts get moved and the debate continues.

So let's answer some questions:

1) Do college softball players do any conditioning at all?
I would guess so, but I really don't know. If someone can chime in on this it would be great since it is the original question.

2) Can men hit women's softball pitching?
Yes, any beer league men's fast pitch team would crush them. MLB players would be even worse if they practiced for a minute.

3) Can women hit MLB or even NCAA pitching.
Hell no. Once the male body reaches maturity, they surpass females in strength and speed and while there will always be exceptional athletes who do way better than the norm, when you are only talking about the most exceptional male athletes, the women cannot get to that level.

Now I am not saying that there will never be a woman who can play with the men, but overall they just can't keep up.


All that said, I still love watching softball as it is a much more viewer friendly sport than baseball. So I can see why it gets better ratings. Also it is on the main ESPN channels more often than baseball. Probably because the games take half the time.

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Bartoli Colon and John Kruk are still made fun of today. That's like 2 fat guys in mlb over 30 years.

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Cecil and Prince Fielder. Mo Vaughn. Sabathia. Kirby Puckett. Tony Gwynn wasn't obese, but at 5-11, 225, he wasn't exactly svelte. Some of the best hitters have been pretty portly.

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Do college softball players do any conditioning at all?

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So no one ever answered this question, and I am watching the SEC Network and they currently have MSU vs Texas A&M softball, and I would not be shocked if they don't do any conditioning, at all.