The Ball (34 page)

185
What about cricket, then:
Block,
Baseball Before We Knew It
, p. 144.

186
“to avail themselves of passing the Fourth”:
Warren Goldstein,
Playing for Keeps
, pp. 132–33.

189
“When the batsman takes his position”:
Peter Morris,
A Game of Inches
, p. 29.

191
The Industrial Revolution had transformed the leisure lives:
Kirsch,
The Creation of American Team Sports
, p. 67; Goldstein,
Playing for Keeps
, p. 24.

192
“a class of players who are”:
Cited in Paul Dickson,
The New Baseball Dictionary
, p. 333.

193
“a German immigrant who was the possessor”:
Morris,
A Game of Inches
, p. 44.

193
baseballs were reputedly made from sturgeon eyes:
Ibid., p. 396.

193
“We had a great deal of trouble”:
Daniel “Doc” Adams,
The Sporting News
, February 29, 1896.

194
Doc Adams's solution:
19cbaseball.com.

194
“escorted in carriages”:
Goldstein,
Playing for Keeps
, p. 19.

195
As Warren Goldstein points out:
Goldstein,
Playing for Keeps
, pp. 17–31.

198
“Baseball clubs . . . are now enlisted”:
Kirsch,
The Creation of American Team Sports
, p. 79.

201
“What . . . can any club do?”:
Goldstein,
Playing for Keeps
, p. 32.

202
“The
boys
have a say”:
Kirsch,
The Creation of American Team Sports
, p. 65.

204
Albert G. Spalding, a rising pitching star:
Peter Levine,
A. G. Spalding and the Rise of Baseball
.

212
“For creation myths”:
Stephen Jay Gould,
The Creation Myths of Cooperstown
.

7: Played in America

216
“Baseball . . . is what America aspires to be”:
Cited in Michael MacCambridge,
America's Game
, p. 454.

219
“breaches of peaces, and pieces of britches”:
Mark Bernstein,
Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession
, p. 5.

220 “
the jerky little ‘dummy' engine”:
Parke Davis,
Football: The American Intercollegiate Game
, pp. 42–50.

222
“At one time it was banned”:
Marples,
A History of Football
, p. 95.

223
an all-out attack on traditional mob football:
Ibid., pp. 98–100.

223
“ludic zoos of the age”:
Goldblatt,
The Ball Is Round
, pp. 24–26.

225
“The two sides close”:
Thomas Hughes,
Tom Brown's Schooldays
, p. 103.

225
“do away with the courage and pluck”:
Cited in Goldblatt,
The Ball Is Round
, p. 31.

226
“I will not permit thirty men”:
Bernstein,
Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession
, p. 9.

226
the “Boston Game”:
Davis,
Football: The American Intercollegiate Game
, p. 53.

227
“Football will be a popular game”:
Ibid., p. 65.

229
“Kicking it. That's what the rest of the world does.”
Sal Paolantonio,
How Football Explains America
, p. xxii.

230
England looked to spread its newly sanctioned game:
Goldblatt,
The Ball Is Round
, pp. 87–98.

233
Richard Lindon of Rugby:
Historical details to be found on www.richardlindon.com.

234
Fourteen managers from 10 professional teams:
Robert Peterson,
Pigskin
, p. 69.

238
70 percent of the world's stitched soccer balls:
From laborrights.org.

241
Frederick Winslow Taylor:
Taylor,
The Principles of Scientific Management
.

241
“managerial and technocratic perspective”:
Michael Oriard,
Reading Football
, p. 37.

242
When his teammates twice bucked his strategy:
John Sayle Watterson,
College Football
, p. 19.

243
“A scrimmage takes place”:
Football: The American Intercollegiate Game
, p. 468.

243
“What is, therefore, in the English game”:
Walter Camp,
American Football
, pp. 9–10.

245
“so disgusted spectators”:
Camp, cited in Bernstein,
Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession
, pp. 19–20.

245
“If on three consecutive fairs and downs”:
Davis,
Football: The American Intercollegiate Game
, p. 470.

246
“Division of labor . . . has been so thoroughly”:
Walter Camp, “The Game and Laws of American Football,” cited in Guttmann,
Sports: The First Five Millennia
.

248
In 1884, Wyllys Terry of Yale:
Bernstein,
Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession
, p. 22.

249
his take-no-prisoners play:
McQuilkin and Smith, “The Rise and Fall of the Flying Wedge.”

250
“No sticky or greasy substance”:
Davis,
Football: The American Intercollegiate Game
, pp. 96–97.

251
“is no longer a solemn festival”:
Cited in Oriard,
Reading Football
, p. 93.

252
“Captain Frank Ranken of the Montauk football team”:
Cited in Marc S. Maltby,
The Origins and Early Development of Professional Football
, p. 26.

253
Charles Eliot, Harvard's president:
Watterson,
College Football
, p. 30.

255
“playing baby on the field”:
Maltby,
The Origins and Early Development of Professional Football
, p. 28.

255
Roosevelt was a fan of rough sports:
Watterson,
College Football
, pp. 64–65.

256
“Out of heroism grows faith”:
Bernstein,
Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession
, p. 38.

256
“not soft but honest”:
Maltby,
The Origins and Early Development of Professional Football
, p. 33.

257
“I believe that the human body”:
New York Times
, Dec. 11, 1905, cited in Watterson,
College Football
, p. 76.

257
As early as 1894:
Guttmann,
Sports
, p. 145.

257
The purpose of the rules that emerged:
“The New Game of Football,”
New York Times
, Sept. 30, 1906.

258
Passes could only be thrown from five yards:
Bernstein,
Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession
, p. 85.

259
Amos Alonzo Stagg claimed:
Allison Danzig,
The History of American Football
, p. 37.

259
“It shall be tightly inflated”:
Oriard,
King Football
, p. 132.

259
“throwing laterals is an attempt”:
Ibid., p. 331.

260
“In the past it was a style of ball”:
Ben McGrath, “Does Football Have a Future?,” p. 47.

260
According to Timothy Gay:
“Football Physics: Anatomy of a Hit,”
Popular Mechanics
, Dec. 18, 2009.

262
at a turning point in the safety debate:
“Game Changers,”
Bostonia
, Fall 2010.

263
“lay a pillow down”:
New York Times
, February 3, 2011.

264
“competing desires for danger and safety”:
Oriard,
King Football
, p. 335.

264
perhaps even its “special glory”:
Guttmann,
From Ritual to Record
, p. 118.

8: Nothing New Under the Sun

267
“When it's played the way”:
John Edgar Wideman, “Michael Jordan Leaps the Great Divide,”
Esquire
, Nov. 1990.

268
Naismith felt their pain:
Unless otherwise indicated, all quotes from James Naismith are from his book,
Basketball: Its Origin and Development
.

269
“a competitive game, like football”:
Rob Rains, James Naismith, p. 32.

272
“The fewer players down to three”:
James Naismith,
The Triangle
, Jan. 15, 1892.

274
The first players to “post up”:
Robert W. Peterson,
Cages to Jump Shots
, p. 41.

274
“The ball was four pieces of leather”:
Ibid., p. 49.

276
“the game must remain”:
Ibid., p. 37.

281
“People see [the Square]” and other Aaron Williams quotes:
The Republican
, July 18, 2010.

283
“all that I know most surely”:
Mandelbaum,
The Meaning of Sports
, p. 210.

284
“These young guys were staying”:
Phone interview with Harry Rock, director of YMCA Relations, Springfield College, May 11, 2011.

285
“To win men for the Master”:
James Naismith, from his original application to the YMCA Training School, Springfield College Archives.

286
“Many business men at forty are fat and flabby”:
YMCA source materials provided by Harry Rock.

290
“Ruck,” as he was known:
Nelson George,
Elevating the Game
, pp. 72–78.

301
“cleared the lane”:
Ron Thomas,
They Cleared the Lane
.

302
“She was smart and attractive”:
Ralph Melnick,
Senda Berenson
, p. 33.

302
“Many of our young women”:
Pamela Grundy and Susan Shackleford, Shattering the Glass, p. 10.

303
the idea that girls and women could withstand:
Grundy and Shackleford.

304
“the so-called ideal woman”:
Melnick, p. 23.

304
“Now that the woman's sphere”:
Senda Berenson, “The Significance of Basket Ball for Women.”

304
she posted a note on the outer door:
Melnick, p. 1

306
Early teams captured this feeling:
Grundy and Shackleford, p. 19.

307
“Gentlemen, if you attempt to do away”:
Ibid., p. 47.

307
The SPHAs . . . got their start:
Peterson,
Cages to Jump Shots
.

309
“Everywhere you looked, all you saw was concrete”:
Mandelbaum,
The Meaning of Sports
, p. 241.

309
New York Renaissance Big Five:
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,
On the Shoulders of Giants
, pp. 137–176.

310
During those Jim Crow days:
Peterson,
Cages to Jump Shots
, p. 96.

311
Douglas later estimated:
Thomas,
They Cleared the Lane
, p. 9.

311
“slept in jails because they wouldn't put us up”:
Abdul-Jabbar, p. 162.

311
When their manager protested an unfair call:
Ibid., p. 160.

312
The two all-black barnstorming teams:
Abdul-Jabbar.

313
“Naismith believed you can do”:
George,
Elevating the Game
, p. 86.

316
In his recorded remarks, President Obama:
“Obama Hosts Dinner for Islamic Holy Month,” Associated Press, Sept. 2, 2009.

Epilogue: Back to Basics

323
United is, after all:
“More than Manchester,”
Time
, May 28, 2011.

326
I knew several Amazonian tribes had once played games:
Theodore Stern,
The Rubber-Ball Games of the Americas
, pp. 8–9.

327
and two soccer balls:
www.lossoberanos.com/evidencia.

Selected Bibliography

Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem, with Raymond Obstfeld.
On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007.

Ackerman, Diane.
Deep Play
. New York: Vintage Books, 1999.

Azoy, G. Whitney.
Buzkashi: Game and Power in Afghanistan
. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2003.

Baker, William J.
Sports in the Western World
. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988.

Beals, Ralph L.
The Acaxee: A Mountain Tribe of Durango and Sinaloa
. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1933.

Beers, George W.
Lacrosse: The National Game of Canada
. Montreal: Dawson, 1869.

Bekoff, Marc. “Social Play and Social Morality.” In
Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior
. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004.

Benavente, Toribio de.
Historia de los Indios de la Nueva Espana
. Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1956.

Berenson, Senda. “The Significance of Basket Ball for Women.” In
Women and Sports in the United States: A Documentary Reader
. Jean O'Reilly and Susan K. Cahn, eds. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2007.

Bernstein, Mark F.
Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession
. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.

Blanchard, Kendall.
The Anthropology of Sport: An Introduction
. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. 1995.

Block, David.
Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game
. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005.

Brown, Stuart.
Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul
. New York: Avery, 2009.

Caillois, Roger.
Man, Play and Games
. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2001.

Calvin, William H.
The Throwing Madonna: Essays on the Brain
. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983.

Camp, Walter.
American Football
. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1891.

________.
Football Facts and Figures: A Symposium of Expert Opinions on the Game's Place in American Athletics
. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1894.

Carlier, Yves, and Thierry Bernard-Tambour.
Jeu des Rois, Roi des Jeux: Le Jeu de Paume en France
. Musée National du Château de Fontainebleau, 2001.

Cooper, Jerold S. “Buddies in Babylonia: Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and Mesopotamian Homosexuality.” In
Riches Hidden in Secret Places: Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Memory of Thorkild Jacobsen
, ed. by Tzvi Abusch. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2002.

Culin, Stewart.
Games of the North American Indians
. New York: Dover, 1975.

Danzig, Allison.
The History of American Football: Its Great Teams, Players, and Coaches
. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1956.

Davis, Parke H.
Football: The American Intercollegiate Game
. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1911.

Decker, Wolfgang.
Sports and Games of Ancient Egypt
. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992.

Dewey, Donald. “The Danish Professor and Baseball.”
Scandinavian Review
, Summer 2006.

Díaz del Castillo, Bernal.
The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico, 1517–1521
. Edited by Genaro Garcia. London: Routledge, 1928.

Dickson, Paul.
The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary
. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1999.

Dohrmann, George.
Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine
. New York: Ballantine Books, 2010.

Duran, Fray Diego.
Book of the Gods and Rites and the Ancient Calendar
. Translated by Fernando Horcasitas and Doris Heyden. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971.

Feldman, David.
When Do Fish Sleep? And Other Imponderables of Everyday Life
. New York: Harper & Row, 1989.

Fischer, Anthony L.
The Game of Pallone From Its Origin to the Present Day, Historically Considered
. London: Bell and Daldy, 1865.

Fisher, Donald M.
Lacrosse: A History of the Game
. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.

Fox, John. “Playing with Power: Ballcourts and Political Ritual in Southern Mesoamerica.”
Current Anthropology
37, no. 3 (1996): 483–509.

________. “Students of the Game: Archaeologists Are Researching Ulama—Oldest Sport in the Americas.”
Smithsonian
, April 2006.

Gardner, Percy.
Catalogue of the Greek Vases in the Ashmolean Museum
. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1893.

Garsault, François-Alexandre de. L'art du paumier-raquetier et de la paume. Descriptions des arts et métiers, faites ou approuvées par messieurs de l'Académie royale des sciences. Paris, 1767.

George, Nelson.
Elevating the Game: Black Men and Basketball
. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.

Gillmeister, Heiner.
Tennis: A Cultural History
. New York: New York University Press, 1998.

Goldblatt, David.
The Ball Is Round: A Global History of Soccer
. New York: Riverhead Books, 2008.

Goldstein, Warren.
Playing for Keeps: A History of Early Baseball
. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989.

Gould, Stephen Jay. “The Creation Myths of Cooperstown.”
Natural History
, November 1989.

Gould, Todd.
Pioneers of the Hardwood: Indiana and the Birth of Professional Basketball
. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1998.

Grundy, Pamela, and Susan Shackleford.
Shattering the Glass: The Remarkable History of Women's Basketball
. New York and London: The New Press, 2005.

Guttmann, Allen.
From Ritual to Record: The Nature of Modern Sports
. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978.

________.
Sports: The First Five Millennia
. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004.

Harris, H. A.
Sport in Greece and Rome
. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1972.

Henderson, Robert W.
Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origin of Ball Games
. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1947.

Hill, Dean.
Football Thru the Years
. New York: Gridiron Publishing, 1940.

Hughes, Thomas.
Tom Brown's Schooldays
. London: MacMillan and Co., 1882.

Huizinga, Johan.
Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Modern Culture
. New York: Routledge, 2007.

James, William.
The Principles of Psychology
, vol. 2. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1890.

Juster, F. Thomas, Frank Stafford, and Hiromi Ono. “Changing Times of American Youth: 1981–2003.” Institute of Social Research, University of Michigan, 2004.

Kirsch, George B.
The Creation of American Team Sports: Baseball and Cricket, 1838–72
. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989.

Krznaric, Roman.
The First Beautiful Game: Stories of Obsession in Real Tennis
. Oxford, UK: Ronaldson Publications, 2006.

Lee, Richard. “What Hunters Do for a Living, or, How to Make Out on Scarce Resources.” In
Man the Hunter
, eds. Richard Lee and Irven Devore. New York: Aldine, 1968.

Levine, Peter.
A. G. Spalding and the Rise of Baseball
. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Leyenaar, Ted. “The Modern Ballgames of Sinaloa: A Survival of the Aztec Ullamaliztli.” In
The Sport of Life and Death: The Mesoamerican Ballgame
, ed. E. Michael Whittington. London: Thames & Hudson, 2001.

MacCambridge, Michael.
America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation
. New York: Random House, 2004.

Magoun, Francis Peabody, Jr.
History of Football from the Beginnings to 1871
. Bochum, Germany: H. Pöppinghaus, 1938.

Maltby, Marc S.
The Origins and Early Development of Professional Football
. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1997.

Mandelbaum, Michael.
The Meaning of Sports: Why Americans Watch Baseball, Football, and Basketball and What They See When They Do
. New York: Public Affairs, 2004.

Marino, Lori. “Convergence of Complex Cognitive Abilities in Cetaceans and Primates.”
Brain, Behavior and Evolution
59, 2002.

Marples, Morris.
A History of Football
. London: Secker & Warburg, 1954.

Marshall, Julian.
The Annals of Tennis
. London: Strand, 1878.

Mártir de Anglería, Pedro.
Décadas del Nuevo Mundo
.
Colección de Fuentes para la Historia de América
. Buenos Aires: Editorial Bajel, 1944.

McGrath, Ben. “Does Football Have a Future? The NFL and the Concussion Crisis.”
The New Yorker
, January 31, 2011.

McLean, Teresa.
The English at Play in the Middle Ages
. New York: HarperCollins, 1985.

McQuilikin, Scott A., and Ronald A. Smith. “The Rise and Fall of the Flying Wedge: Football's Most Controversial Play.”
Journal of Sport History
20, no. 1 (Spring 1993).

Melnick, Ralph.
Senda Berenson: The Unlikely Founder of Women's Basketball
. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007.

Miller, Mary Ellen. “The Maya Ballgame: Rebirth in the Court of Life and Death.” In
The Sport of Life and Death: The Mesoamerican Ballgame
, ed. E. Michael Whittington. London: Thames & Hudson, 2001.

Miller, Stephen J.
Arete: Greek Sports from Ancient Sources
. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.

Mills, Dorothy Seymour.
Chasing Baseball: Our Obsession with Its History, Numbers, People and Places
. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2010.

Morris, Peter.
A Game of Inches: The Stories Behind the Innovations That Shaped Baseball
. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006.

Nadal, Laura F. “Rubber and Rubber Balls in Mesoamerica.” In
The Sport of Life and Death: The Mesoamerican Ballgame
, ed. E. Michael Whittington. London: Thames & Hudson, 2001.

Naismith, James.
Basketball: Its Origin and Development
. New York: Association Press, 1941.

Neils, Jennifer, et al.
Coming of Age in Ancient Greece: Images of Childhood from the Classical Past
. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003.

Newsome, Elizabeth A.
Trees of Paradise and Pillars of the World: The Serial Stela Cycle of 18 Rabbit-God K, King of Copan
. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001.

Oriard, Michael.
Reading Football: How the Popular Press Created an American Spectacle
. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.

________.
King Football: Sport and Spectacle in the Golden Age of Newsreels, Movies and Magazine, the Weekly and the Daily Press
. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

Paolantonio, Sal.
How Football Explains America
. Chicago: Triumph, 2008.

Peterson, Robert W.
Cages to Jump Shots: Pro Basketball's Early Years
. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.

________.
Pigskin: The Early Years of Pro Football
. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Rains, Rob.
James Naismith: The Man Who Invented Basketball
. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009.

Robertson, John D. M.
The Kirkwall Ba': Between the Water and the Wall
. Edinburgh, UK: Dunedin Academic Press, 2005.

Sahagún, Bernardino de.
Primeros Memoriales
. Paleography of Nahuatl Text and English Translation by Thelma D. Sullivan; Completed and Revised, with Additions, by H. B. Nicholson. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997.

Sahlins, Marshall.
Stone Age Economics
. New York: Aldine, 1972.

Stern, Theodore.
The Rubber-Ball Games of the Americas
. Monographs of the American Ethnological Society 17. New York: J. J. Augustin, 1950.

Tarkanian, Michael J., and Dorothy Hosler. “An Ancient Tradition Continued: Modern Rubber Processing in Mexico.” In
The Sport of Life and Death: The Mesoamerican Ballgame
, ed. E. Michael Whittington. London: Thames & Hudson, 2001.

Taylor, Frederick Winslow.
The Principles of Scientific Management
. New York: Harper & Bros., 1911.

Tedlock, Dennis.
Popol Vuh: The Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life
. Translated by Dennis Tedlock, with commentary based on the ancient knowledge of the modern Quiché Maya. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985.

Thomas, Ron.
They Cleared the Lane: The NBA's Black Pioneers
. Lincoln and Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2002.

Tordesillas, Antonio de Herrera.
Historia General de los Hechos de los Castellanos en Las Islas y Tierra Firme del Mar Océano
. Madrid: Tipografía de Archivos, 1934.

Traubel, Horace.
With Walt Whitman in Camden
. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 1961.

Vennum, Thomas, Jr.
American Indian Lacrosse: Little Brother of War
. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994.

Watterson, John Sayle.
College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy
. Baltimore, MD, and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.

Whitman, Malcolm D.
Tennis Origins and Mysteries
. New York: Derrydale Press, 1932.

Wideman, John Edgar. “Michael Jordan Leaps the Great Divide.”
Esquire
, November 1990, 21.