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The game of softball was invented on Thanksgiving Day of 1887 in Chicago, Illinois at the Farragut Boat Club. Several alumni sat in the Chicago, Illinois Farragut Boat Club, anxiously waiting for the outcome of the Yale v. Harvard football game. Yale was announced as winner, a Yale alumnus jokingly threw a boxing glove at a Harvard supporter. The Harvard fan swung at the balled-up glove with a stick, and the rest of the group looked at it with interest. George Hancock, a reporter for the Chicago Board of Trade, jokingly called out, “Play ball!” and the first softball game commenced with the football fans using the boxing glove as a ball and a broom handle in place of a bat.Later on he had moved the game outdoors, calling it "inside-outside." When the game had first started it had only 19 rules, they were first used in 1889 by the Mid Winter Indoor Baseball League of Chicago.