There is a rich legacy of success involving UCLA softball – as is the case with most of the athletic programs. The school has won almost 90 national championships in various sports over the years, and a microcosm of that mindset of success is on display at Easton Stadium. Evoking thoughts of Yankee Stadium, ringing the outfield wall is a series of banners, each of which celebrates a separate national softball championship.

And the largest visual element on each of these banners is the number which that particular championship occupies among what has been – and is obviously expected to be – an ongoing collection. For example, the 2002 championship banner bears a huge “9” on it, which dwarfs the lettering that identifies the year in which it was won. To UCLA it was merely the 9th national softball championship of their 11 (and counting, quite clearly). This was the backdrop for my first foray into the world of high-caliber women’s softball, as I had come to take in regional action in the NCAA College Softball World Series.

It’s an old bromide from baseball’s Spring Training that during the first few weeks, “the pitchers are ahead of the batters”, meaning there’s not a lot of quality hitting going on. If that is indeed the case, then softball is a direct descendant of Spring Training.

I was introduced to this indirectly by the fact that, throughout the plate appearance of Fresno State’s lead-off batter in their game against San Diego State, the SDSU first baseman played at least a third of the way up the first base line toward home plate – and on one occasion got even closer! This put her only 30-40 feet from a hitter swinging an aluminum bat at a pitch thrown with a good deal of velocity. I’ve never had much luck with physics, but a quick assessment of the situation told me that: (a) the first baseman had a death wish; or (b) solid line-drive contact is rare enough so as not to be a concern. For some reason SDSU (and in the second game, UCLA) only did this in the first inning, so perhaps it was used as a psychological tool more than anything.

That is not to say however, that maintaining this strategy would have been inviting a great deal of injury, because for many of the players their chosen strategy for getting on base was the small-ball route: Either outright bunting, or doing the Wade Boggs throw the bat at the ball and try to dump a dying quail into the opposite field thing. Others did a running chop at the pitch. The overall point is that a sizable contingent of players felt they had a consistently better chance of getting on base that way than to simply stand up at the plate and swing away.

Yes Ray, the pitchers are ahead of the batters. Which was not a surprise to me, having seen the occasional clip on television of former big-leaguers trying to hit the pitching of a top-flight women’s softball pitcher. The ball comes in extremely quickly, and by the time it leaves the pitcher’s hand after her windmill windup and delivery, it is much closer to the hitter than the 43’ that is the official distance between the pitching rubber and home plate.

This relative disadvantage on the part of the average batter vs. the average pitcher made the offensive game, well…somewhat defensive. Fairly early on in the first game I noticed that there seemed to be an unusual large number of foul balls being hit. In baseball, a player is known as a patient hitter if he can draw more than six pitches in an at-bat on a regular basis. In softball, six pitches is just the warm-up for an at-bat. I can’t say with any definitive knowledge based on having seen just two games, but it definitely appears to me that hitting foul balls – i.e. “spoiling” good pitches – is a skill that is taught and practiced extensively. This cat and mouse game was SOP for many, many, maaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnyyyyy batters. I was absolutely enthralled early in the first game when, by my count, a batter had fouled off at least eight pitches. Nobody else around me seemed too impressed. As the day went on I understood why. And I started to formulate a business plan for going into the softball manufacturing business.

As I drove home, I estimated that over the course of the 14 innings that I witnessed, over 50 softballs left the confines of the stadium via a foul ball. Just out of curiosity when I got back home I went online to find out the retail cost of an official NCAA game softball. A short time later The Bird arrived home to revive me. My rough estimate of how much money flew out of Easton Stadium is $3,674,557, give or take. That’s when I realized that these batters weren’t trying to get on base – they are all stockholders in Jarden Corporation, the parent company of Worth Sporting Goods.

As for the games themselves…

In the first game, San Diego State came out of the gate hot and looked like they would run away with the game, but Fresno State wiggled out of one jam after another to stay within striking distance – down 3-0. Then lo and behold, in the 7th and final inning, Michelle Moses, the same pitcher who had worked magic in keeping Fresno State in the game, hit a line drive home run to left field with a runner on base. It was her 18th home run of the season, a stat which I took at face value until the second game when one UCLA player after another launched home runs, only to be informed by the P.A. announcer that it was their 6th or 8th or 10th dinger of the year. Fresno State kept the pressure on, and the last two outs of the game were on well-hit balls. It was an entertaining game, but it was just a warm-up for my appreciation of softball played at the elite level.

If the first game featured two teams that at first glance appeared evenly matched, in the nightcap…well, let’s say that UCLA only has to take the field and warm up to display why they are currently ranked 5th in the country. The Bruins are imposing, intimidating, and just plain big. And the swagger with which they carry themselves adds to the size advantage. I almost felt bad for their opponent, St. Mary’s.

During the pre-game introduction of players, I wrote down “I wouldn’t be surprised if every player on the team went Big Fly at some point or another in the game”. Sure enough on the second pitch of the game to a UCLA player – gone. The first batter in the second inning hit one to right field that cleared the wall by a minimum of twenty feet. One inning later a UCLA home run landed on the roof of a building that lay some 20 yards behind the center field wall. And before the night was through, four different Bruins had hit home runs – with sophomore Danny Yudin leaving the yard twice.

Clearly outmatched by UCLA from the start, St. Mary’s kept their composure and somehow managed to withstand the early home run barrage and stay in the game. Three times their center-fielder hauled in drives on the warning track, and on two occasions they were able to turn double plays to stem scoring threats. And at the plate they displayed patience – and more patience…and still more patience…..and still…zzzzzzzzzzzz. Sorry, I was lulled to sleep by the constant string of foul balls. Apparently UCLA pitcher Donna Kerr was in the fifth inning as well, for a small lapse in her mound domination resulted in a St. Mary’s uprising. A pair of walks, a hit batsman, a gajillion foul balls, a couple of ringing hits including a home run by Jenna Smith – and when the dust had settled, UCLA was clinging to a 5-4 lead and St. Mary’s had the tying run on third.

But here’s the thing. UCLA doesn’t “cling” to leads, and as the teams traded places to start the bottom of the fifth inning, you got the strong feeling that they were going to put the hammer down. Indeed, having snuffing out the St. Mary’s rally, they went back to bludgeoning the ball during a pair of three-run innings. Ball game. A coldly efficient thrashing.

See, championship banner #11 was posted on the right field wall in 2004, and the longest stretch of time between championships since 1978 has been seven years. So at UCLA, let’s just say there’s business to attend to.