Details the differences from men's softball and offers effective strategies.

Reviews rules, recommends conditioning exercises, discusses positions, and explains offensive and defensive strategies.

Introduces the history, equipment, skills, and strategies of softball.

For reference librarians and researchers seeking information on sports and fitness, this guide is an important first stop. For collection development specialists, it is an invaluable selection guide. Allen describes and evaluates over 1,000 information sources on the complete spectrum of sports: from basketball, football, and hockey to figure skating, table tennis, and weight training. Focusing on English-language works published between 1990 and the present, the guide thoroughly covers traditional reference sources, such as encyclopedias and bibliographies, along with instructional sources in print formats, online databases, and Web sites. To enable users in search of information on specific sports or fitness activities, chapters are organized thematically, according to broad- type aquatic sports, nautical sports, precision and accuracy, racket sports, ice and snow sports, ball sports, cycling, and so on, with subcategories for such individual sports as soccer, golf, and yoga. Within these categories, works are further organized by type: reference, instructional, and Web sites.

From its humble beginnings in 1887, when it was invented in a Chicago boat club and played with a broomstick, to the rise in the 1940s and 1950s of professional-caliber company-sponsored teams that toured the country in style, softball's history is as diverse as it is fascinating. Though it's thought of today as a woman's sport, fastpitch softball's early years featured several male stars, such as the vaudeville-esque Eddie Feigner, whose signature move was striking out batters while blindfolded. But because softball was one of the only team sports that women were allowed to play competitively, it took on added importance for female athletes. This book chronicles its history.