PLANT CITY, FLORIDA — A brief guide for communications professionals, journalists, and broadcasters has been developed by the International Softball Federation (ISF), the world governing body for the sport.  “Properly Portraying Softball” covers do’s and don’ts for written and spoken word as well as images and will be made available in hard copy and electronic formats.

“Just like with our development efforts, we’re always trying to educate people on our sport,” said ISF President Don Porter.  “There are a lot of common mistakes that we felt we could help prevent – like the necessity for saying ‘pitching circle’ instead of ‘pitcher’s mound’ – so this guide will be one of the steps toward accomplishing that.”

The ISF plans to make “Properly Portraying Softball” available to its member federations and hopes to make it a regular handout at international softball tournaments too.  The guide ranges from telling its readers to be sure to use ‘run-ahead rule’ instead of ‘mercy rule,’ to depicting a yellow ball with red stitching, which the publication says should be used (in photo or clipart) instead of a white ball with red stitching.

“And this is not final either,” the ISF President added.  “We constantly analyze our sport from a multitude of viewpoints, so as we see other common areas that we need to properly direct people on, the guide will undergo updates.”

The ISF will be gathering its member federations in late October this year for the Congress in Manila, where Mr. Porter said “Properly Portraying Softball” will also be made available.   

The ISF is the world governing body of the sport as recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the General Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF).  Softball (women’s fast pitch) made its Olympic debut at the 1996 Games in Atlanta.  There are 128 affiliated countries in the ISF and millions of participants in the sport worldwide.