In Slowpitch Softball, the pitcher must start with a foot in contact with the pitching plate. She may take one step in any direction, but his foot must remain in contact with the plate until the ball is released. The ball is lobbed underarm and must have an arc which reaches at least six feet, but no more than twelve feet, from the ground. Anything else will be called an illegal pitch by the umpire and will count as a ball unless the batter swings at the pitch.

 The batter will be standing next to home plate, ready to hit. Here comes the pitch! For a moment, let's ignore the main object of the game, which is for the batter to hit the ball. Suppose she doesn't? What happens then?

Strikes and Balls
A pitched ball will be described (by the umpire) as either a STRIKE or a BALL. Basically, a strike is a good pitch and a ball is a bad one.

A GOOD PITCH must

Some definitions:

• THE STRIKE ZONE is an imaginary three-dimensional column of space with depth, width and corners corresponding to the shape of home plate. A ball needs to pass through ANY part of this zone to be called a strike.
• A STRIKE is a pitched ball which fulfils all of the above conditions. In all other cases, the pitch is a BALL, unless the batter swings at it.
• A STRIKE OUT occurs if three strikes are called against the batter and the batter hasn't managed to hit the ball into Fair Territory.

A STRIKE is called if a pitch is good and the batter fails to swing, or swings and misses, or swings and hits the ball into Foul Territory (without it being caught) or into Dead Ball Territory; OR a pitch is bad (would be deemed a BALL) but the batter swings and misses it

A BATTER ON BASE or a WALK occurs if a pitcher pitches four BALLS(bad pitches) which the batter makes no attempt to hit. In this case the batter will walk to first base.

Putting batters on base is dangerous since it ‘loads the bases’ with runners who can score if a big hitter gets a ball into Fair Territory. The basic job of a Slowpitch pitcher is to throw strikes!