NEW YORK -- Major league baseball wants to attract more women and families, and thinks softball might be one way to do it.

The sport on Thursday announced a partnership with National Pro Fastpitch, the new name of the 5-year-old Women's Pro Softball League.

The fast-pitch league will start next summer with a tour of exhibition games, clinics and interactive fan activities in 12-14 cities in connection with major league baseball. By 2004, the league hopes to have eight teams in place for its inaugural season.

Major league commissioner Bud Selig is trying to strengthen the game's family involvement after an ESPN-Chilton poll showed an 11 percent increase in female fan base since 1996.

"Our decision to partner with them is based on a five-year history of success,'' said John McHale, baseball's executive vice president for administration. "We believe this relationship has the ability to grow our fan base.''

Baseball considers the female softball players a natural resource, especially after the United States won Olympic gold medals in 1996 and 2000. Baseball will provide sponsorship support and the softball players will be a presence at major league events, such as the All-Star game.

"We've had a quiet relationship for several years,'' said Richard Levine, president and chief executive of the fast-pitch league. "Now it is more formal.''

Levine says there are plenty of potential players.

"Seventeen hundred colleges have fast-pitch teams,'' Levine said. "There are 375,000 high school girls playing fast-pitch compared with 450,000 boys playing baseball. Over a million females play the sport every year.''

As he talked about his league, Levine rarely used the S word -- softball.

"I don't avoid the word,'' he said. "We just don't use it. We talk fast-pitch not softball because there's nothing soft about it.''

The game is a scaled-down version of traditional baseball, with outfield fences between 210 and 230 feet, 60-foot basepaths, a dirt-only infield and a flat pitcher's surface 43 feet from home plate. Pitchers throw about 65-70 mph.

Put away the computer. Levine offered the arithmetic conversion to baseball.

"If a baseball is thrown at 95 mph from 60 feet, 6 inches, the reaction time for the batter is about the same,'' he said.

But baseball pitchers don't use the fast-pitch windmill delivery that resembles a whirling dervish.

Julie Smith, second baseman for the 1996 gold medal team, knew the next question was coming: Did she ever face a major league pitcher?

"Don Fehr is an old friend,'' she said. "He always talks about me doing that.''

Fehr, executive director of the players' union, has access to an imposing arsenal of arms.

What if he rolls out, oh, maybe, five-time Cy Young Award winner Randy Johnson?

"Then I want Jason Giambi to face one our pitchers,'' Smith said.