HUB Softball

Conflicted on this review– while the hub is light years ahead of BWCS and BSSC, they have recently fallen off. The huge advantage of the hub used to be that they used to only use appropriate fields (rather than BSSC trying to play games on t ball and fast pitch fields). This year though that has changed– our field selection for fall includes gems such as M street field (too small for one game much less trying to put two games on concurrently), Ryan (also too small), Daisy (yep, still too small) and Ginn, which has the strangest layout of any adult field Ive ever seen.
The organization is good, and the umps are contracted through ASA rather than the mishmash you get with other leagues, but the fields are brutal and only seem to be getting worse.

The HUB Softball league is really they only place for a softball addict or fan. I have played in a few leagues in the Boston area and in different parts of the country and this league is the best. It has something for every type/​skill of player. Weather your an individual, a couple of friends, a whole team, man or woman they have a spot for you. Weather your a beginner just looking to have some fun with friends and meet new people or your there to kick butt and take names they have a spot for you. Chris and Mike (league owner/​operators) are great they do an amazing job with this league. They are always looking for ways to make the league better for everyone. The League website is always updated. The stat tracker for teams is a cool feature they offer as well. Just like any softball league there are ump issues from time to time. That’s just softball, more often than not the umps do a good job. The league is a great value and really does have something for every type of player.

I’ve played with a few different co-​ed slow-​pitch softball teams in Boston with different organizations. But the Hub is the worst of the worst.
I remembered today why I left this league – the umps are horrible… which is putting it lightly. I was called in to a friend’s team to sub pitch.
When pitching slow-​pitch softball the criteria is, get just the right amount of arc on the ball and get the ball over the plate. That’s it. This is not Major League Baseball. There is no Amica Pitch Zone. There are no sliders, curve balls, or two-​seam fastballs. There is only one pitch: get the ball over the plate with a bit of arc. That’s it.
The ump I encountered today maybe called a total of three strikes (for both teams) so it became a game of «people getting together to stand at the plate and then walk to a base».
Worse, our catcher informed us that the ump was quietly whispering the pitch before it reached the plate… a little incentive to not swing the bat (and have to run off that tubby beer belly). Our team did not receive this perk.
I’m sure this sounds like sour grapes, but win or lose – I’ll take BSSC any day.
If you want a well-​organized experience with a league that knows their stuff, BSSC blows away this wannabe professional MLB franchise. It’s slow pitch softball, people.

After having had a terrible experience in a different (and very disorganized) league for a few years, my team moved over to The Hub last fall. The website is frequently updated, so you’ve always got a good idea of the standings and schedule. The schedule last fall came in two parts, first 4 – 5 games and then the rest of the season, and we had the whole season schedule by the second week. We had a team forfeit to us the first game, and Chris (who is one of, if not the main person behind the league) apologied to us repeatedly. We actually saw him at the fields a few times over the course of the season. The league is very hands on, and you get the sense that they have the same slightly strange addition to softball that we seem to have.
The umps were a bit more pro than we were used to, in a good way. A couple of strange ones, but you get that anywhere. Beware the female ump who doesn’t make calls very loudly.
Rules are pretty typical coed rules, must have 3 girls in the field and in batting order. They do NOT do the 1 – 1 count, all counts start at 0 – 0, which we strongly prefer (if only because our beloved pitcher can sometimes have some control issues).
They only get 4 out of 5 stars because our Sunday co-​ed league was only one division last year, but they are looking to do two divisions this spring/​summer. We are more of a novice/​rec team, and we got pounded by some real heavy hitters (guys with baseball pants who have drills they run during warmups), but most of them weren’t even dicks about it. Most of the teams in the league were pretty fun to play with and low on ego. As long as they do a higher and lower level of play for this season, they are a 5 star league. We are coming back for the spring, and hoping we might actually win more than 2 games!