History of Softball

History of Softball
By: Kelsea Placey

                                     

    Softball is my favorite game and in this term's local history project I am going to show the history of softball. The history of softball is by far the clearest of all documented sports related histories. There is a lot of history about softball, and one that everyone should know is that it developed as a younger version of baseball, but people are always asking “Who invented softball?” Although one man came up with a version of the game in 1887, another modified the game in 1895. A young Chicago gentleman, George Hancock, is considered the inventor of the game. Hancock told the group that they should play a ball game. He shaped a boxing glove into a ball and tied it. Then, he mapped out the infield diamond to fit the inside the gym. A man from Yale grabbed a stick/broom handle to use as a bat. A boating club, a boxing glove and a football game were the key parts in the very first game of softball, which was first invented on Thanksgiving day in Chicago in 1887, and it all happened at Yale University. A man in the fans from Yale then hit the boxing glove with a broom handle, and in conclusion it resulted in an indoor baseball game. Throughout time this game became very popular, and developed into a winter sport in Chicago. By 1889, a winter program for baseball was formed, and when the seasons passed and the weather became warmer, softball was taken outside to the real field. It is odd to say that softball history originated indoors and was developed by men. The original game was loosely based on a shortened version of baseball with a smaller field and a larger ball. Thankfully just about everything with softball has changed today. Softball can be played by men, but it is thought of as a woman's sport. It is particillary played in the United States, and is a very popular sport today. The first women's softball team was formed in 1895 at Chicago's West Division High School. The basic equipment that was used was a huge 17-inch ball and a stick-like bat. No gloves were worn, and the catcher didn't even have to wear a mask. The ball was very soft, compared to the balls that softball players use today. The distance between bases was greatly reduced from baseball, being only 27 feet apart. Also, the pitcher was about 22 feet from home plate, and today it is 43 feet. Sandbags served as bases, and  players were allowed to slide into them and push them along in the slide. In today's softball game, the bags are rubber, and you can slide, but there are chances of getting hurt. The bases are into the ground, and don't come out very easily. The game involved nine players, with two shortstops,  and right, and only two outfielders, left and right. It is recommended that there is a first baseman, a second baseman, shortstop, third baseman, a pitcher, catcher, a left fielder, right fielder, and a center fielder in today's game. A lot has changed in the game of softball since 1887. After talking with coach J.D, I've realized that there are many things that have changed since 1887. There are ways that pitchers were pitching back then, where today they would be illegal, and the pitcher would have to step out of the game. He says that softball has become a very serious sport in the past 10 years, and it has become more of a woman sport, rather than a men sport. On the field, things have changed also. For example, the pitchers mound has became farther away from home plate, for a couple of good reasons. Girls today are becoming more active than they used to be, so they moved it farther away so that the girls would have more of a challenge, instead of having everything be easy for them. Softball is becoming more unique as the years go by, and from what we see, softball players are happy with the changes that have been made.


    

    

Jfk Murder

I was crying, because Jfk was a really good leader, he did many things for our country, and it shocked me that some terrorists killed him. After all of this happened, i was very upset, and like myself, the whole country was upset, and disturbed by what happened. Everyone could see how serious the situation was, people were changing there ways because of what they saw.

Untitled

Cuban Misille crisis

The Descision to Use Atomic Weapons

    The Decision to Use Atomic Weapons
from

A People's War?
Howard Zinn

         Still, the vast bulk of the American population was mobilized, in the army, and in civilian life, to fight the war, and the atmosphere of war enveloped more and more Americans. Public opinion polls show large majorities of soldiers favoring the draft for the postwar period.I agree with this thing that at the time of war,most or some times every people of every war nation take part in war through direct or indirect way.
  -kelsea placey 3/4/10 1:18 PM Hatred against the enemy, against the Japanese particularly, became widespread. Racism was clearly at work It happened at this crucial time. -kelsea placey 3/4/10 1:23 PM Time magazine, reporting the battle of Iwo Jima, said: "The ordinary unreasoning Jap is ignorant. Perhaps he is human. Nothing .. . indicates it." ....      
        The bombing of Japanese cities continued the strategy of saturation bombing to destroy civilian morale; one nighttime fire-bombing of Tokyo took 80,000 lives. Bombing to japanese was one of the best strategies at world war II. -kelsea placey 3/4/10 1:25 PM  And then, on August 6, 1945, came the lone American plane in the sky over Hiroshima, dropping the first atomic bomb, leaving perhaps 100,000 Japanese dead, and tens of thousands more slowly dying from radiation poisoning. Twelve U.S. navy fliers in the Hiroshima city jail were killed in the bombing, a fact that the U.S. government has never officially acknowledged, according to historian Martin Sherwin (A World Destroyed).Sometimes for big accomplishments we need to sacrifice minority. -kelsea placey 3/4/10 1:27 PM Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, with perhaps 50,000 killed.
       The justification for these atrocities was that this would end the war quickly, making unnecessary an invasion of Japan. Such an invasion would cost a huge number of lives, the government said-a million, according to Secretary of State Byrnes; half a million, Truman claimed was the figure given him by General George Marshall. (When the papers of the Manhattan Project-the project to build the atom bomb In world war II the US tried to fight at the whole time with atomic bombs and all of the mass destruction weapons. -kelsea placey 3/4/10 1:29 PM  were released years later, they showed that Marshall urged a warning to the Japanese about the bomb, so people could be removed and only military targets hit.) These estimates of invasion losses were not realistic, and seem to have been pulled out of the air to justify bombings which, as their effects became known, horrified more and more people. Japan, by August 1945, was in desperate shape and ready to surrender. New York Times military analyst Hanson Baldwin wrote, shortly after the war:

The enemy, in a military sense, was in a hopeless strategic position by the time the Potsdam demand for unconditional surrender was made on July 26.
       Such then, was the situation when we wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
       Need we have done it? No one can, of course, be positive, but the answer is almost certainly negative.

       The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, set up by the War Department in 1944 to study the results of aerial attacks in the war, interviewed hundreds of Japanese civilian and military leaders after Japan surrendered, and reported just after the war:

Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.

       But could American leaders have known this in August 1945? The answer is, clearly, yes. The Japanese code had been broken, and Japan's messages were being intercepted. It was known the Japanese had instructed their ambassador in Moscow to work on peace negotiations with the Allies. Japanese leaders had begun talking of surrender a year before this, and the Emperor himself had begun to suggest, in June 1945, that alternatives to fighting to the end be considered. On July 13, Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo wired his ambassador in Moscow: "Unconditional surrender is the only obstacle to peace.. .." Martin Sherwin, after an exhaustive study of the relevant historical documents, concludes: "Having broken the Japanese code before the war, American Intelligence was able to-and did-relay this message to the President, but it had no effect whatever on efforts to bring the war to a conclusion."
       If only the Americans had not insisted on unconditional surrender- that is, if they were willing to accept one condition to the surrender, that the Emperor, a holy figure to the Japanese, remain in place-the Japanese would have agreed to stop the war.
       Why did the United States not take that small step to save both American and Japanese lives? Was it because too much money and effort had been invested in the atomic bomb not to drop it? General Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, described Truman as a man on a toboggan, the momentum too great to stop it. Or was it, as British scientist P. M. S. Blackett suggested (Fear, War, and the Bomb), that the United States was anxious to drop the bomb before the Russians entered the war against Japan?
       The Russians had secretly agreed (they were officially not at war with Japan) they would come into the war ninety days after the end of the European war. That turned out to be May 8, and so, on August 8, the Russians were due to declare war on Japan, But by then the big bomb had been dropped, and the next day a second one would be dropped on Nagasaki; the Japanese would surrender to the United States, not the Russians, and the United States would be the occupier of postwar Japan. In other words, Blackett says, the dropping of the bomb was "the first major operation of the cold diplomatic war with Russia.. .." Blackett is supported by American historian Gar Alperovitz (Atomic Diplomacy), who notes a diary entry for July 28, 1945, by Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, describing Secretary of State James F. Byrnes as "most anxious to get the Japanese affair over with before the Russians got in." All of this is politics and the russian acted as if they were friends with the japanese. The Japan wasnt that kind of strong country to fight with the USA, so at any time they could lose so they were always scared. -kelsea placey 3/4/10 1:31 PM 
       Truman had said, "The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians." It was a preposterous statement. Those 100,000 killed in Hiroshima were almost all civilians. The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey said in its official report: "Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and population."
       The dropping of the second bomb on Nagasaki seems to have been scheduled in advance, and no one has ever been able to explain why it was dropped. Was it because this was a plutonium bomb whereas the Hiroshima bomb was a uranium bomb? Were the dead and irradiated of Nagasaki victims of a scientific experiment? Martin Shenvin says that among the Nagasaki dead were probably American prisoners of war. He notes a message of July 31 from Headquarters, U.S. Army Strategic Air Forces, Guam, to the War Department:  Well if it's a real scientific experiment then japan was the best lab and japanese were the perfect-kelsea placey 3/4/10 1:34 PM 

Reports prisoner of war sources, not verified by photos, give location of Allied prisoner of war camp one mile north of center of city of Nagasaki. Does this influence the choice of this target for initial Centerboard operation? Request immediate reply.

The reply: "Targets previously assigned for Centerboard remain unchanged."
       True, the war then ended quickly. Italy had been defeated a year earlier. Germany had recently surrendered, From this statement we can understand that world war II was going to end soon. -kelsea placey 3/4/10 1:36 PM  crushed primarily by the armies of the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front, aided by the Allied armies on the West. Now Japan surrendered.

Ira Gilliand recalls his night on the...

Ira Gilliand recalls his night on the ridge. I agree with him because he is emotional.  -kelsea placey 3/2/10 2:06 PM 

It's tough to talk about this stuff.in my opinion memories of a war is nothing anybody is or should be proud about. its more something that you try to forget and leave behind, because its something really bad. -kelsea placey 3/2/10 2:06 PM  It's been fifty-eight years. It gives me the chills thinking about it.in my opinion memories of a war is nothing anybody is or should be proud about. its more something that you try to forget and leave behind, because its something really bad. -kelsea placey 3/2/10 2:07 PM 

The Japanese were trying to outflank usFrom my view of point if something happend with me and with my country then also i would be scared for this kind of situaion. -kelsea placey 3/2/10 2:07 PM  and looked like they were going to overrun our position. I remember their screams. They screamed a lot,screams are something which burn into your memory forever. especially if screams are the only thing keeping you from falling asleep, later you are only remembering their screams -kelsea placey 3/2/10 2:08 PM  especially when they were charging. It made you alert in a hurry even after being up for two days and you're ready to fall asleep.I will say it was emotionally challenge for american soldier to face their screaming which was blood colding,ifI was that kind of situation against teir screaming obiously it was going to scary for me.-kelsea placey 3/2/10 2:09 PM 

They kept charging, but that's where the grenades came in. We threw grenades all night long. I remember rolling the grenades down. We were up on the hill and they were below us. They kept feeding us boxes of grenades. I remember the sound of Plante's BAR. He kept it going all night long. A lot of guys spent a terrible night out there. In a war time it's a common story for soldiers. -kelsea placey 3/2/10 2:11 PM 

The 1st Parachute Battalion was with us. I remember one of the paratroopers got shot. The corpsman came over because of his cry for help, and he [the corpsman] got shot right through the heart.His name was Smith, so when I saw Smith go down, I grabbed him and carried him down the hill. I didn't think he was going to die. When I got him down to the first aid station, I saw one of our doctors cry.  We all know that doctor's are strong mentality compossed human but at those time even doctor's were emotionally broke up. -kelsea placey 3/2/10 2:12 PM  [chokes up] Old Smitty was my friend, a real nice guy, and I broke down also.

World War II