I haven’t had this much fun in ages!
Photo courtesy WGN
Did you ever hear of mushball? Also known as “Chicago ball,” it is played like softball but with a ball that is 16 inches in circumference. The circumference of a regulation softball is 12 inches. Also, the more you hit the mushball, the softer it gets, so players don’t generally wear gloves.
The earliest known softball game of any kind was played at the Farragut Boat Club in Chicago on Thanksgiving Day 1887. The 16-inch softball was eventually adopted in Chicago, apparently because it did not travel as far as the 12-inch ball. This also allowed for play on smaller playgrounds or even indoors, accommodating the Chicago landscape and cold winter climate. Another advantage of the mushball was that it allowed everyone to play barehanded, and gloves were a rare luxury as the Great Depression hit Chicago particularly hard.
Up until two years ago, I had been playing softball with my church team, but at age 70, I hung up the spikes. My daughter recently moved to our town of Martinez, California. She used to play softball in high school, and we were looking for a fun baseball activity we could do together, as we had bonded around baseball, attending a San Francisco Giants game every year around her birthday since she was four years old.
So when I heard about mushball, I bought a couple of balls and tried to drum up interest at my church for an informal game of mushball on alternate Saturdays this summer. On the first two dates, we had only two or three others show up, so we just took batting practice. But on the most recent Saturday, we had a total of eight.
As a kid, we learned to play baseball games with those few. So I felt like a youngster again as I explained the rules to the mushball participants. We counted off by twos to form two teams. Each team would pitch to itself, leaving four fielders. All of the players batted right-handed, so you had to hit to the left of second base. Any ball hit to the right of second is a foul ball. With four fielders, each team had a third baseman, shortstop, left fielder, and center fielder.
Mushball! (photo courtesy Kyle Cardoza / Sanger Herald)
If the ball was hit on the ground, the infielder had to throw it to the pitcher before the batter reached first base, resulting in an out. If there had been a left-handed batter, we would have reversed the rules. Any ball hit to the left of second base would be a foul. The fielders would be the first baseman, the second baseman, the right fielder, and the center fielder. Because the defensive team would have a first baseman in this setup, ground ball outs would be recorded by throwing to the first baseman rather than the pitcher.
We had all ages at the game. Graham, a senior gentleman around my age who hails from England, grew up with cricket and had never before played baseball. He caught on quickly, taking my tips in batting practice. He played three innings, but pulled a muscle as he ran to third base on a base hit and had to withdraw. I asked him today if he wants to play again in a couple of weeks, and he replied, “The only thing stupider than doing something you shouldn’t do in the first place is doing it again.” So, no Graham in the next game.
The other players ranged in age from eleven to 72 (me) and everything in between. A couple of the players were excellent at catching line drives and pop-ups with their hands. Only my daughter and I used gloves. The eleven-year-old and his older brother, bored with catching with their hands, decided to catch fly balls in their baseball caps!
My daughter played an excellent third base. She was always a good fielder but had been a first baseman in high school and had never played third before.
When pitching to his team, the eleven-year-old didn’t seem to understand the concept that one is supposed to play defense as a pitcher to get your team out. He showed a distinct disinterest in fielding balls hit near him or in receiving throws from the infielders after they caught ground balls. I, on the other hand, when pitching to my team, caught several balls hit right back at me. I will have to educate him on mushball etiquette next time.
We were trailing 6-1, but our youth pastor, who runs like the wind, hit a couple of line drive home runs in the gap in left-center field, and we tied the game 6-6. We decided to play one more inning. We were the home team. The visitors clubbed the ball around at the top of the frame and scored four runs. We failed to score in the home half.
But nobody was too concerned about the score. We played five innings. We had started batting practice a little bit after Noon, but my daughter and I were amazed when we realized we had finished the game by 1:15 p.m.
So, mushball goes pretty fast. No commercials between innings, no replay review, no throwing over to first base to hold the runner on, no timeouts, no bringing in a relief pitcher from the bullpen.
It is difficult to hit the ball too far, which worked out perfectly within the dimensions of the back lawn of our church. So if you have a smaller space that is not ideal for baseball or softball, give mushball a try. Our ball didn’t get too mushy yet, but I can feel it softening.
By the end of the summer, it should be even harder to hit far and easier to field with our bare hands. You can purchase a mushball on Amazon. I bought two because, like when I was a kid, it’s inevitable that one will land on a roof or go down a sewer.
