Form One Lane

Is he serious? You decide.

I'm often asked — no, really — how to tell the difference is between Softball and Baseball. This does not present a problem — I simply smile a broad, confident smile, and explain simply, "It's easy. Softball is better."

Of course, there's more to it than that. Softball was invented as a variant of baseball that could be played indoors over winter, but it was popularised amongst girls — who are clearly not good enough to play a real sport — who wanted something to do in the summertime. The ball is larger, the field is significantly smaller, the games are faster, and the pitcher is required to throw underarm. Most of the differences lead softball — when played well, and it usually is, by both men and women — to be a much quicker, more exciting game. Softball is Twenty/20 to baseball's One-Day game.

I occasionally wander down to my local ballpark to watch Canberra's A-grade baseball league games. The standard is much lower than the equivalent men's softball league, but the games are still quite engaging. One of the things I found most striking, after watching a couple of games, was the easy masculinity of the players. Baseball — at least, the games I have watched — seems to be very much a man's game. The players are men the way your father is a man — that simple, confident masculinity that says "Sure, I'm male; I have broad shoulders, I can do stuff with power tools, and I keep losing my keys. So what?" The women — when there were any — were there to help their sons or brothers or boyfriends. As a bloke, I find this fascinating, and somewhat thrilling — in a don't-tell-the-feminists-I'm-not-so-enlightened kind of way.

By contrast, male softball is aggressively macho. The players grunt and groan and scream like That Guy down the gym. When some misfortune befalls them they react like their very manhood is at stake: "That fucktard umpire called me out, so I'm going to spend the rest of the game swaggering around, talking in a deep voice, and loudly announcing my intention to pee standing up next time I need to go potty." Elite softball men act as if they're forever in fear of being called on for playing a girl's game, and so they do everything in their power — short of actually dropping trou — to remind you that they do, in fact, have a penis.

It must be said, this sort of behaviour does not occur at the level I play. Perhaps it's because for my colleagues, softball is a game for the older gentleman, many of whom literally are your father (well, maybe not your father, although there have been rumours ...) — and can therefore be expected to bring your father's easy, responsibility-accepting masculinity to everything they do. Or perhaps — and I prefer this explanation — it's because we suck. If you're an elite player, you will be forgiven for throwing all sorts of tantrums because, it seems, once you have a certain level of talent, you've earned the right to act like a spoiled brat with control issues and some nervousness about his sexuality. If a D-grade player, on the other hand, apes the behaviour of his more elite brethren, the most common response from his team-mates is likely to be, "Who the heck do you think you are? Why don't you shut that foul mouth, zip up your pants, and go back to dropping easy catches like the rest of us?"

And now I'm rather taken with the idea that male softballers who arc up are worried about threats to their manhood. I wonder how successfully I could soothe the savage breast if, next time I'm confronted with a raging ballplayer, I were to remind him that, yes, I'm sure his equipment is still "all there" and he has nothing to prove?