Q 01/05

In which US city was the earliest known softball game played, on Thanksgiving Day 1887?

A) Chicago

B) Boston

C) Minneapolis

D) Philadelphia

Answer · why

A) Chicago

The game broke out at the Farragut Boat Club among alumni waiting for the Yale–Harvard football score, and it ended 41–40.

Q 02/05

What object was tied up and used as the ball in the very first softball game?

A) A rolled-up sock

B) A boxing glove

C) A tennis ball

D) A wool cap

Answer · why

B) A boxing glove

A Yale supporter had thrown the glove at a Harvard fan, who swung at it with a stick, and a reporter in the room shouted "Play ball!"

Q 03/05

Who is credited as softball's inventor for developing a 17-inch ball and undersized bat?

A) Abner Doubleday

B) Walter Camp

C) George Hancock

D) Lewis Rober

Answer · why

C) George Hancock

He envisioned the game as a way for baseball players to keep sharp during the winter, so it was first called "Indoor Baseball".

Q 04/05

Lewis Rober organized outdoor games in 1895 as exercise for which group of Minneapolis workers?

A) Police officers

B) Railway workers

C) Mill workers

D) Firefighters

Answer · why

D) Firefighters

Rober's version, called kitten ball, used a smaller ball than the Farragut club's, and it was his ball that eventually prevailed.

Q 05/05

The word "softball" was coined in 1926 by Walter Hakanson, who represented which organization?

A) The Boy Scouts

B) The Red Cross

C) The Rotary Club

D) The YMCA

Answer · why

D) The YMCA

Before that the game went by names including indoor baseball, kitten ball, diamond ball, mush ball and pumpkin ball.