Baseball Vs Softball

What is Harder to hit, a Softball or Baseball?

As Open Doors baseball and softball seasons came to a close this week, both of the teams wanted to honor their seniors, so Coach Loescher organized a Senior Night Softball game. The catchers Lauryn Brown and Zach Strouse were the captains for both teams and picked between Baseball players and Softball girls. The game did not go well for Strouse’s team as the other to Senior captains that were on Lauryn’s team hit home runs off of Strouse. Lauryn’s team crushed Strouse’s team, but that’s another discussion. What I want to focus on today is the age old question, what is harder to hit a softball or a baseball. Baseball has been around for more than 100 years and has baffled thousand of people. How do you hit a little white ball with a big wooden stick when someone is throwing the ball at 90mph from 60 feet 6 inches. But people also say how do you hit a green fluorescent ball that is thrown from 40 feet away at 70mph that rises when you are about to hit it. Let’s examine both. For a batter facing a 95 mph fastball from 60 feet 6 inches a away, the batter has .395 milliseconds to react to the ball. But for a softball hitter facing a 70 mph pitch from 43 feet away has .350 milliseconds to react. That means that a softball batter has less time to react because the pitch is on them so quickly. For a baseball batter the pitch is coming from high to low and it makes it easier to make a last second swing adjustment. It easy for a baseball hitter to hit the ball because the ball is coming down on them. With a softball however when the ball comes out of the pitcher’s hand the ball is coming from low to high, and that makes it harder to raise the hands to hit a pitch. So you be the judge what’s harder to hit a 95mph fastball that’s coming down toward you, or a softball pitch from 43 feet away at 70mph that rises up at you?