Certain sounds just come with softball.

A “pop” that comes with glove catching a ball or the slight “ping” from a bat when there is a hit. Then there’s another sound. For anyone making it, it’s the ultimate sign of teamwork. For anyone having to hear it, it might be the most annoying tone they’ve ever heard.

It’s the chant and a majority of softball teams from the youth leagues to high schools to college programs do it.

“You know, I really don’t understand them,” said Park Vista senior pitcher Chelsea Malcolm. “I just go with the flow. They are just loud and it keeps everyone loud in the dugout. I understand what we are saying but I don’t understand why we are saying it.”

Chances are you’ll find plenty of rhymes and some reason when it comes to chants.

Nobody really knows how and when chanting made its way into softball. For coaches such as Cooper City’s Phil Schmalz or Cypress Bay’s Lonny Shapiro, they’ve always known it to be a part of the game.

Schmalz, who has coached softball in some capacity for 17 seasons, said he remembers the chants being part of the game from the first day his daughter played.

“Whether you are smaller or in high school, baseball players never do that stuff,” said Schmalz, who has been the head coach at Cooper City since 2009. “Really, since Day 1 at rec ball the kids were chanting and it was like, ‘Whoa, this is what they do.'”

Three things go into a successful chant: A player’s last name, that player’s number and having someone on the team willing to be the loudest person around.

Cooper City senior catcher Bethany Williams has gladly weaved all three into what she does.

Williams, who has played since she was 7, said she did cheerleading as a child and the need to be loud carried over into softball. That is how she became Cooper City’s main chant facilitator.

“We kind of just make them up as we go,” Williams said. “One game you’re like ‘Let’s do this’ and that’s how all the cheers just come along.”

Teams such as American Heritage will drum on buckets in the dugout. Palm Beach Gardens will break out a chant in certain situations. Dwyer, from time-to-time, will get a chant going if its needed. Park Vista just likes to be loud no matter what.

Shapiro said chanting is predicated by a team’s environment. He said there are girls who like it and girls who don’t.

He’s indifferent toward chanting. If he has a team that likes to chant and it helps team chemistry, great. If they’re not about it, that’s fine too.

There are times when a team takes on a coach’s personality and that determines how loud or quiet they are, he said.

“I think we should be cheering all the time,” said Cypress Bay center fielder Lexi DiEmmanuele. “It keeps the energy up and keeps everyone going. When you’re not really cheering, it’s dead.”

Shapiro said in the 11 years he’s coached at Cypress Bay he cannot recall a single chant he’s heard.

But that doesn’t mean coaches or players aren’t paying attention to what’s being said.

There are moments when chants cross the line. Williams recalled last season when he broke her foot and was on crutches. She was then the subject of a chant by an opposing team.

“You don’t make fun of people who are injured or just got hurt,” said Williams’ teammate, Paige Lokeinsky. “You also don’t say things I feel that I have to do with someone’s race or sexual orientation, you cannot even go there.”

Both Lokeinsky and Williams said intelligence has to be applied. Chanting isn’t just spouting off something to make fun of someone.

It has to be clever. It has to be funny. It also has to be harmless fun.

The chants have to be all those things. It must also be so annoying that it gets into a pitcher’s head.

“Sometimes, if it is tied and a team is chanting and screaming, it gets into my head,” Malcolm said. “You start throwing more balls. That’s where we start chanting and we get louder than them.”

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