Last week I interviewed softball legend Joan joyce for the Fastpitch Radio Show. Joan has an amazing story, and was so exciting to talk to. I started digging around on the internet, andI found this story about her pitching against the late and great Ted Williams. I thought I would share this story By Tom Yantz with you. The chances of landing "The Splendid Splinter" one year after he had retired from the Red Sox looked slim. Still, an audience with Ted Williams was arranged at his baseball camp in Massachusetts in the summer of 1961. The idea: Come to Waterbury and play in an exhibition softball game to benefit the Jimmy Fund. To help the city make its best pitch, a new player was added to the Waterbury roster. She was the city's best softball pitcher, a tall 20-year-old who could fire the ball past anyone. Williams asked the pitcher to throw him a few. She fired a few past him. The campers broke for lunch. Williams, conversing with a small group, walked ahead of the pitcher. He suddenly turned and asked: "That curveball, how do you throw that?" "You hold it on the seam with the middle fingers like this and give ...

With softball dropped from the 2012 Olympic Games, Crystl Bustos is ready to try baseball. After winning Olympic gold medals in 2000 and 2004 and a silver medal this past summer in Beijing, Bustos, 31, is considering an offer to play minor league baseball for the Tucson Toros, a professional independent team that was formerly a farm club for the Astros. "I'm looking into it as a possibility. I think I can do it," said Bustos, who resides in Valencia and played high school softball at Canyon High. Bustos said she has retired from USA Softball but might stick around as a coach. "I left my cleats at home plate in Beijing. I knew it was going to be over for me, whether we won or lost," Bustos said. "I just want to focus on other things. By the time softball would be in the Olympics again, I'd be 39, and that's stretching it a bit."

By KANDACE MCCOY The softball game played on July 27 started as any other travel team game for Mt. Vernon’s Alisha Capps. There was the routine infield chatter, the barking of umpires’ calls and quiet conversation by fans in the stands. However, normalcy abandoned the game in the fourth inning of a scoreless contest played during the U.S. Nationals at Florissant, Mo. Capps, a 16-year-old hurler playing for the St. Louis Esprit 18-and-under travel team, stared down a Missouri Wicked Elite batter. “She was pitching pretty good that game,” recalled Capps’ father, Steven. Capps hurled a curve ball — high and outside. “It was a pitch no one should have grabbed,” said her mother, Leslie. The Wicked Elite batter reached for and cracked the ball, hitting it approximately 125 miles per hour — right into Capps’ face. “I knew when she fell down and didn’t jump back up something was wrong,” Leslie Capps said, trying to control her trembling voice. “I was screaming to call 911. I knew she was hurt bad — for her not to get up, she had to be hurt bad.” And it was bad. Though Alisha raised her glove to try and catch the ball, she wasn’t ...

Whether you’re a softball parent., or a softball coach with kids playing at the YMCA, or playing select ball there are a variety of online tools that can help you and your team. Here are the top 10 services for softball parents and coaches that allow you to manage your team’s schedule, notify players of news, upload and share player photos and statistics, and much more. Many of these services are free, but there are a few high-quality services that require a monthly or one-time fee for a season. Each provides trial periods so you can test them out to see which works for you and your team. 10. TeamTexting only does one thing, but it does it extremely well. It’s totally free and lets you create a new email address that everyone on the team can use to share news and information instantly via text messaging or email. The format is TeamName@teamtexting.com. If you just need a way to keep everyone in the loop and don’t want to bother with getting everyone’s email address and creating a distribution list, then this is the answer. 9. RosterBot does slightly more than TeamTexting when it comes to communicating with your team. It uses ...

Former University of Washington All-American softball player Jaime Clark was recently named the Nokona American Glove Offensive Player of the Year for the 2008 National Pro Fastpitch season. Clark, who played for Washington from 2000-2003, completed her fourth season with the Chicago Bandits two weeks ago, helping the team capture the 2008 NPF championship. She led the NPF with 38 RBIs and 12 doubles while also ranking fourth with 11 home runs. Clark, who saw time in right field, left field and shortstop for the Bandits, also scored 24 runs and collected 40 hits on the season. She was an All-NPF selection for the third consecutive season. In her time at Washington, Clark was a four-time All-Pac-10 selection and was named First Team All-American in 2002 after leading the nation with 75 RBIs and batting .431. A three-time All-American, she finished her career with UW records in runs batted in (243) and runs scored (221). Clark went on to play for three seasons with the U.S. National Team and was an alternate on the U.S. Olympic Team that captured gold in the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. – The Amateur Softball Association is pleased to announce that USA Softball’s very own Jessica Mendoza (Camarillo, Calif.) is a finalist for the Women’s Sports Foundation Sportswoman of the Year. Vote TODAY for Mendoza, as she helped lead the USA Softball team to a silver medal finish at the 2008 Olympic Games and has been a major staple through the 2008 season. Mendoza started in all nine games of the 2008 Olympic Games at left field, hitting .333 (8-for-24). She scored 10 runs with four homeruns. She contributed nine RBI while remaining perfect in the outfield. Her four homeruns help set a new Olympic Record for most homeruns in Olympic games by a team with 15. Mendoza is not only a leader inside the lines buts also outside. Just moments after the Gold Medal Game, where the team was dealt a devastating loss Mendoza reached out to the Gold Medalists Japan team and Bronze Medal Australian team. Together they formed the statement ‘2016’ with softballs and joined together chanting “Back Softball, Back Softball”, hoping to make a statement for the future of the sport. Throughout the KFC Bound 4 Beijing Tour, where the team barnstormed the Nation playing exhibition ...

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. -- The Amateur Softball Association announced today that USA Softball Women's National Team head coach Mike Candrea (Tucson, Ariz.) will be retiring from the coaching reigns of the Women's National team effective immediately. The head coach since 2002, Candrea has led the U.S. team to one Olympic Gold Medal and most recently the Silver Medal finish at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. "It has been the highest honor to coach for the United States," said Candrea. "I wouldn't trade it for a minute. The experiences I have had through USA Softball and more importantly the relationships I have made with athletes and staff are wonderful. It's been a tremendous ride and blessing to be a part of all of this. But I am ready to settle down and begin my life at home and allow someone else this honor." Candrea will continue his involvement with ASA/USA Softball through a series of educational roles to continue the development of the sport both domestically and internationally. From regional coaching clinics with ASA, to enhanced curriculum with the ASA's ACE Program to further enhancing ASA partnership's with Liberty Mutual Group and ResponsibleSports.com, Candrea ...

SportJunk.com has created another great website for fastpitch softball fans. Fastpitch.TV is our newest, and maybe our best website yet. We scan You Tube daily, and find the best Fastpitch Softball videos for your viewing pleasure. What does this mean to you? It means you no longer have to search through 1000's of videos to find the best fastpitch softball videos. You won't have to see another video of a 4 year old hitting a softball. You will never have to worry about clicking on a softball video, only to find out is is porn mislabeled as a softball video. Every video on Fastpitch.TV is G rated. Take a look at Fastpitch.TV, and I think you will agree. It is the best free fastpitch video site on the Internet. Just go to www.fastpitch.tv and start enjoying our newest website.

BEIJING (AP) -- With silver medals swinging from their necks, their eyes filled with tears, five members of the U.S. Olympic softball team walked to home plate and placed their cleats in the dirt. Their games were over, and so were their international playing careers. With that they said goodbye to softball, the sport they played better than anyone else save for one game. Losing for the first time since 2000, the Americans were denied a chance for a fourth straight gold medal Thursday, beaten 3-1 by Japan in softball's last appearance in the Olympics for at least eight years. Maybe forever. Yukiko Ueno, Japan's remarkably resilient right-hander, shut down the Americans and handed them their first loss since Sept. 21, 2000 at the Sydney Games. The U.S. had won 22 straight since then, most with outrageously lopsided scores. Another gold was certainly within reach. Instead, they walked off Fengtai Field with their heads bowed. "It hurts a lot," slugger Crystl Bustos said. "You train your whole life and you want to win. You don't expect to lose." The U.S. team never led and made two uncharacteristic errors in the seventh inning to help the Japanese add an important insurance run -- one they didn't even need. When ...

On any given day, you never know who might be watching you, or our sport for the first time. What kind of impression do you want to leave on them? Every time you step on the field you have an opportunity to represent the game with integrity and class and it starts by holding a high personal standard. Believe it or not there is going to come a time when you begin to toy with the idea of hanging up the spikes. I've told you before, I've thought a lot about it but why is it so hard to walk away? Even after two decades of playing, many off-field conversations with teammates turn to softball, but the focus of the conversations are no longer about the fundamentals of the game, it's turned to the ways in which we can leave a positive, lasting impression on the sport that has given us so many opportunities throughout our lives. It may sound like a corny explanation but it's true. Like many of my teammates, I feel like I have a responsibility to make sure that I leave the sport better than I found it. In light of ...