A survey of softball clubs in Southern California alone, revealed the existence of a thousand women's teams within a hundred miles of Los Angeles. In the metropolitan area of Chicago it is estimated that thirty-five thousand players participate regularly on twenty-five hundred organized teams. These figures give some indication of the extent to which softball has been popularized throughout this country.
Much of the growth of softball is due to a large number of industrial firms having sponsored teams which tour the country playing under company names. In hundreds of cities feminine softball teams have been formed, the players being recruited from high schools. Expert women's teams attract large and enthusiastic crowds, having proved so popular during 1938 that a series was played in Madison Square Garden in New York City.
The 1938 World's Championship Softball Tournament was held at Soldiers Field in Chicago. Fifty-six men's teams and thirty-four women's aggregations came from forty-three states and the District of Columbia to compete for the national titles. The men's championship was won by the team sponsored by Pohlar's Cafe of Cincinnati, Ohio. A team of young women, 'The Kriegs' of Alameda, Calif., won the women's championship. The regulation game of softball is normally played by ten persons on a sixty-foot diamond and consists of seven innings. Rules and national competitions are governed by the Amateur Softball Association of America.
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