Prologue: Warm-Up
8 According to a 2004 study: Juster et al., “Major Changes Have Taken Place in How Children and Teens Spend Their Time.”
1: Play Ball
13 “It is already known to me”: James, The Principles of Psychology, p. 675.
14 “of limited immediate function”: “Taking Play Seriously,” New York Times, Feb. 17, 2008.
14 “purposeless activity, for its own sake”: Cited in Allen Guttmann, From Ritual to Record, p. 3.
14 “not serious”: Huizinga, Homo Ludens, p. 13.
14 “an occasion of pure waste”: Roger Caillois, Man, Play and Games, p. 5.
14 In his schema: Stuart Brown, Play, pp. 17–18.
15 “have not waited for man”: Huizinga, Homo Ludens, p. 1.
15 According to Marc Bekoff: Marc Bekoff, “Social Play and Social Morality,” p. 838.
16 Studies of young mammals: “Taking Play Seriously,” New York Times, Feb. 17, 2008.
16 One of the most dramatic: Ibid.
17 “a central paradox”: “The Play’s the Thing,” From book review in The Atlantic, May 2010.
21 In one study: Cited in “The Serious Need for Play,” Scientific American Mind, Feb.-March 2009.
21 In another study: Brown, Play, p. 33.
21 A recent study conducted: “How Sports May Focus the Brain,” New York Times, March 23, 2011.
22 Neuroscientist Sergio Pellis: “Taking Play Seriously.”
23 EQ is defined: Lori Marino, “Convergence of Complex Cognitive Abilities in Cetaceans and Primates,” p. 59.
27 Vanessa Woods, a researcher: From phone interview conducted Jan. 20, 2009.
28 “In a dangerous world”: Diane Ackerman, Deep Play, p. 4.
30 In the 1960s: Richard Lee, “What Do Hunters Do for a Living, or, How to Make Out on Scant Resources.”
30 “keep bankers’ hours”: Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics, p. 34.
31 “A ball, similar to the one”: W. E. Harney, “Sport and Play Amidst the Aborigines of the Northern Territory.” Mankind 4 (9): 377–379. Cited in Blanchard.
31 the Copper Inuit: Blanchard, The Anthropology of Sport, p. 150.
32 Buzkashi achieved brief fame: Azoy, Buzkashi: Game and Power in Afghanistan.
36 “[His] comrades are roused up”: Cooper, “Buddies in Babylonia,” p. 78.
37 The ancient Greeks played it: Neils et al., Coming of Age in Ancient Greece.
37 “Give the word”: Percy Gardner, Catalogue of the Greek Vases in the Ashmolean Museum.
38 The actual balls used: Wolfgang Decker, Sports and Games of Ancient Egypt, pp. 111–116.
41 Every city had its stadiums: Guttmann, Sports: The First Five Millennia, p. 19.
41 “Nausicaa hurled the ball”: Harris, Sport in Greece and Rome, p. 81.
42 “He caught the ball and laughed”: Stephen J. Miller, Arete, p. 116.
2: From Skirmish to Scrum
50 “a soft and musical inflection”: Muir quote cited on Orkneyjar.com: The Heritage of the Orkney Islands.
50 “Hundreds of years ago the people of Kirkwall”: John D. Robertson, The Kirkwall Ba’, p. 215.
55 The origin of the Uppie and Doonie division: Ibid., p. 6.
59 “A round ball and a square wall”: Guttmann, Sports: The First Five Millennia, p. 40.
60 As one British scholar has humbly pointed out: Morris Marples, A History of Football, p. 4.
60 One of the earliest mentions of a football-like game: Francis Peabody Magoun, History of Football, p. 1.
61 “drove balls far over the fields”: Ibid, p. 4.
61 “After dinner all the youth of the city”: Marples, A History of Football, p. 18.
63 “seven balls of the largest size”: Robertson, The Kirkwall Ba’, p. 286.
64 “We’ll surely hae guid tatties”: Ibid., p. 160.
67 the only time women played a ba’: Ibid., pp. 115–122.
73 “died by misadventure”: Magoun, History of Football, p. 4.
74 “Neyther maye there be anye looker”: Teresa McLean, The English at Play in the Middle Ages, p. 8.
74 “Whereas our Lord the King”: Magoun, History of Football, p. 5.
75 “dangerous and pernicious [game]”: Cited in William J. Baker, Sports in the Western World, p. 54.
76 “In the face of moral preachments”: Ibid., p. 55.
3: Advantage, King
80 “And those standing at the one end”: Heiner Gillmeister, Tennis: A Cultural History, p. 1.
81 “On Easter Day, after dinner”: Robert Henderson, Ball, Bat and Bishop, p. 50.
83 “the French are born with rackets”: Baker, Sports in the Western World, p. 67.
83 In 1596, there were 250 jeu de paume courts: Guttmann, Sports: The First Five Millennia, p. 63.
85 Your typical lawn tennis ball: Feldman, When Do Fish Sleep?, p. 36.
86 They used dog hair instead: Gillmeister, Tennis: A Cultural History, p. 77.
86 “and not containing sand, ground chalk”: Baker, Sports in the Western World, p. 66.
88 Looking at the near-finished product: Yves Carlier, Jeu des Rois, Roi des jeux, p. 37.
91 In fact, he loved tennis so much: Julian Marshall, The Annals of Tennis, p. 18.
93 “Let us leave the nets to fishermen”: Baker, Sports in the Western World, p. 86.
98 “played all day with them at ball”: Malcolm Whitman, Tennis Origins and Mysteries, p. 26.
99 “13th June 1494”: Gillmeister, Tennis: A Cultural History, p. 21–22.
103 “Some members of the clergy”: Ibid., p. 32.
103 “priests and all others in sacred orders”: Henderson, Ball, Bat and Bishop, p. 54.
104 The Book of the Courtier: Baker, Sports in the Western World, p. 60.
104 “Water which stands without any movement”: Roman Krznaric, The First Beautiful Game, p. 38.
105 Henry II built his courts at the Louvre: Baker, Sports in the Western World, p. 65.
107 Molière’s troupe of comedians: Carlier, Jeu des Rois, Rois des Jeux.
4: Sudden Death in the New World
112 “He was decapitated”: Elizabeth Newsome, Trees of Life and Death, p. 84.
113 pallone, a handball game: Anthony Fischer, The Game of Pallone.
114 “I don’t understand how when the balls hit the ground”: Mártir d’Anglería, Décadas del Nuevo Mundo.
114 “Jumping and bouncing are its qualities”: Duran, Book of the Gods and Rites and the Ancient Calendar, p. 316.
114 For 3,500 years or so: Laura F. Nadal, “Rubber and Rubber Balls in Mesoamerica,” p. 24.
116 “Rubber is the gum of a tree”: Toribio de Benavente, cited in Tarkanian and Hosler.
116 “The balls are made from the juice”: Mártir d’Anglería, cited in Tarkanian and Hosler.
117 In the 1940s Paul Stanley: Tarkanian and Hosler, “An Ancient Tradition Continued.”
118 At El Manatí: Nadal, “Rubber and Rubber Balls in Mesoamerica,” p. 27.
126 One match on record from 1930: Ted Leyenaar, “The Modern Ballgames of Sinaloa.”
126 “I do not know how to describe it”: Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico, p. 269.
127 “The playing of the ball game began”: Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, p. 200.
127 “The man who sent the ball”: Duran, Book of the Gods and Rites and the Ancient Calendar, p. 315.
129 “On a lucky day, at midnight”: Antonio de Herrera Tordesillas, Historia General de los Hechos.
131 Though it was first recorded: Dennis Tedlock, The Popol Vuh.
132 “Life is both taken and renewed”: Mary Ellen Miller, “The Maya Ballgame.”
134 According to a 17th-century account: Ralph L. Beals, The Acaxee.
138 In what almost seemed a sadistic homage: “Mexico Cartel Stitches Rival’s Face on Soccer Ball,” Associated Press, January 9, 2010.
5: The Creator’s Game
144 As early as 1374: Baker, Sports in the Western World, p. 46.
144 “There is a poor sick man”: Cited in Stewart Culin, Games of the North American Indians, p. 589.
145 “They have a third play with a ball”: Ibid.
146 In this way, the Iroquois confederacy: Donald Fisher, Lacrosse, p. 14.
147 In 1763, a group of Ojibwe: Ibid.
155 In 1878, a group of Mohawk and Onondagan Indians: Ibid., p. 58.
156 “the fact that they may beat the pale-face”: George W. Beers, Lacrosse: The National Game of Canada, p. 55.
159 “a fighting band of Redskins”: Fisher, Lacrosse: A History of the Game, p. 172.
161 “In his dream, the boy saw”: Thomas Vennum, American Indian Lacrosse, p. 30.
162 Traditionally, the outcomes of games: Ibid., p. 36.
163 “Sometimes, also, one of these Jugglers”: Cited in Culin, p. 589.
168 “On one side of the green the Senecas”: Vennum, American Indian Lacrosse, p. 104.
169 “didn’t seem to be so much a point of the game”: Ibid., p. 110.
171 In 2010, lacrosse in the United States: Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, U.S. Trends in Team Sports, 2010 edition.
6: Home, with Joy
175 “every prospect of becoming [America’s] national game”: George B. Kirsch, The Creation of American Team Sports, pp. 21–23.
175 “he sometimes throws and catches a ball”: David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, p. 237.
177 “This is not a museum, it’s a church”: Bernard Henri-Lévy, “In the Footsteps of Tocqueville,” The Atlantic Magazine, May 2005.
178 Baseball Reliquary: Dorothy Seymour Mills, Chasing Baseball, pp. 48–50.
178 “Well—it’s our game”: Walt Whitman, from Horace Traubel, Walt Whitman in Camden.
179 A letter sent to the Hall of Fame: Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, p. 101; and SABR Protoball Chronology, Up to 1850.
179 Romanian Oina Federation: SABR Protoball Chronology, Up to 1850.
180 Danish researcher Per Maigard: Donald Dewey, “The Danish Professor and Baseball.”
182 “To shote, to bowle”: Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, p. 230.
184 “In the winter, in a large room”: Ibid., p. 140.
185 working trap-ball into the saucy mix: Richard Thomas Dutton, Women Beware Women and Other Plays, cited in SABR Protoball Chronology, Up to 1850.
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.