Softball’s return to the Olympics, for the games to be held in Los Angeles in 2028, will mark the first time a nation has twice hosted the sport for Olympic competition, a fitting tribute for the country where the game began.

Softball’s origins date to 1887, when reporter George Hancock saw someone in Chicago hitting a boxing glove with a broom handle. In 1895, firefighters in Minneapolis played a similar game using a ball of yarn wrapped in leather.

Originally called “indoor baseball,” the game later moved outside to fields that were too small for a baseball diamond. In 1926, Walter Hakanson, who would later become president of the Amateur Softball Association, proposed unifying the various versions of the game into one sport called softball.

While the rules and size of the ball have varied over the ensuing decades, different versions of softball are still played across the United States and the world.

An Olympic return

At the LA28 Olympics, softball joins baseball as a combined Olympic sport, with women playing softball and men playing baseball.

“It’s great for the sport that we’re back,” USA Softball Executive Director Craig Cress said, noting softball’s U.S. popularity helped get the sport included in the 2028 Olympics.

Upward of 9 million people played softball in the United States in 2023, according to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association. And Little League Softball , started in the United States in 1974, has expanded to where 300,000 participants now play on 25,000 teams across 25 countries.

It’s important for us to “show the values of what our sport does, and how important it is,” to the United States and other countries, Cress said. More than 60 countries compete internationally in softball.

LA28 marks softball’s sixth appearance in the Olympics. Softball debuted as a medal sport in Atlanta in 1996, then was played in Sydney 2000, Athens 2004, Beijing 2008 and Tokyo 2020.

How to play

Although similar to baseball, softball is played with a larger ball and on a smaller field. The pitcher throws underhand using a fast windmill motion that can generate pitches in excess of 112 kilometers per hour (70 miles per hour). Pitchers throw from a flat circular area, in contrast to baseball where pitchers stand on a raised mound. A softball game is also shorter than baseball, with only seven innings compared to nine.

The 2028 Olympic softball games will be played in Oklahoma City, 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) east of Los Angeles. Oklahoma City’s 13,000-seat stadium will allow players to compete on an existing field made for softball, rather than a reworked baseball field or a newly constructed complex.

Six countries will compete in the Olympic softball tournament. As the host nation, the United States is guaranteed entry. Other qualifiers will include the winners of the World Baseball Softball Confederation’s 2027 Women’s Softball World Cup, regional championships and a last-chance qualifier tournament.

The teams competing in the 2028 Olympics will first compete against each other in a preliminary round, with the gold medal game scheduled for the day before the Olympic closing ceremony.

Deborah Charles is a freelance writer.