hardball has no recorded synonym. Each sense below keeps its own list, because a synonym belongs to a meaning and not to a word: swapping one sense's substitute into another sense's sentence is how a thesaurus makes writing worse. Its one recorded opposite is softball.
Counts are distinct word forms across every sense. A synonym that appears under three senses is counted once here and shown three times below, under each sense it belongs to.
a no-nonsense attitude in business or politics
“they play hardball in the Senate”
Synonyms, antonyms and the broader and narrower relations for hardball come from Princeton University’s WordNet. Full sources and licences.