1995 Recreational Sports – Softball

On May 20, 1995, the U.S. Postal Service issued five 32-cent Recreational Sports stamps in Jupiter, Florida. The set honored softball, volleyball, bowling, tennis, and golf, with colorful illustrations by Don Weller. The softball stamp depicts a woman preparing to swing a bat.

The issue coincided with three centennial anniversaries: the invention of volleyball in 1895, the founding of the American Bowling Congress that same year, and the first U.S. Golf Association championships, also held in 1895.

Softball traces its origins to an indoor game developed by George Hancock at Chicago’s Farragut Boat Club in 1887. In Minneapolis, firefighter Lewis Rober helped develop and popularize an outdoor version known as kitten ball during the 1890s. His contributions included organizing a team called the Kittens in 1895, giving softball its own connection to the centennial year.

The Amateur Softball Association of America was founded in 1933 to organize competition and help standardize playing rules. The organization is now known as USA Softball.

The stamps were printed by the Banknote Corporation of America using lithography and issued in panes of twenty. A total of 30,000,000 stamps were issued for each of the five designs, totaling 150,000,000 stamps across the set. At 32 cents each, the softball stamps represented a total face value of $9,600,000. The softball stamp is cataloged as Scott 2962.