George Hancock (softball)

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George Hancock, at the time a reporter for Chicago Board of Trade, invented the game of softball in 1887. The first game was played indoors, inside the Farragut Boat club. Someone found a boxing glove and threw it and someone else hit it with a stick. George Hancock shouted " Let's play ball" and tied the boxing glove into the shape of a ball. The men chalked a diamond shape onto the floor and broke a broom handle to serve as a bat. This is known as the first softball game, on Thanksgiving Day, 1887, after a Harvard-Yale football game.

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