Softball is a team sport in which a ball, eleven to twelve inches in circumference, is thrown by a player called a pitcher and hit by an offensive player called a batter with a round, smooth stick called a bat. The ball itself is also called a softball. Scoring is accomplished by the batter running and touching a series of four markers on the ground called bases. Softball is a direct descendant of baseball (sometimes referred to as hardball to differentiate the two), but differs from it in several ways, of which the chief four are:

• The ball is always pitched (thrown to the batter) underarm – that is, it is released when the hand is below the hip and no further from the body than the elbow – while in baseball the ball may be released in any position and is usually thrown overarm or sidearm.
• The ball is larger, less dense, and heavier than a baseball.
• The playing field is normally smaller.
• The game is seven innings long, as opposed to nine in baseball. Consequently, softball games typically take between sixty minutes and two hours to complete, as opposed to around three hours for most baseball games.

In softball the fielding team fields nine players – the left, center, and right fielder play in the outfield, while the pitcher, catcher, first baseman, second baseman, third baseman, and shortstop play in the infield. The basemen play in the vicinity of their bases, while the shortstop plays between the second and third baseman (normally the second baseman plays on the first base side of second base and the shortstop on the third base side). The pitcher stands at the pitching point in the centre of the diamond; for men the pitching point is 46 ft (14 m) from home plate, while for women it is 40 ft (12 m) from home plate (43 ft at elite level). There is no pitcher's mound as in baseball, but the pitching area is denoted by a circle surrounding the pitching plate 8 ft in diameter. The catcher plays behind home plate, squatting to receive the pitch.