Antedatings of "Softball"

[Shapiro, Fred]

softball (OED, game, 1926)

1920 _Youth's Companion_ 9 Sept. 531 (American Periodical Series)  Nothing takes the place of baseball with boys.  If it is not possible to have the use of a field large enough for the regular game, substitute the soft-ball game, a description of which was published in the Family Page for July.


softball (OED, ball, 1914)

1883 _N.Y. Time_ 21 Aug. 4 (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)  The sanguine speculator who managed the base-ball girls ... intends that the girls shall at once resume the study of the game with a hard instead of a soft ball.


Fred Shapiro

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org