America's Popular Sports

1. American Football

The sport of American football itself was relatively new in 1892. Its roots stemmed from two sports, soccer and rugby, which had enjoyed long-time popularity in many nations of the world. On November 6, 1869, Rutgers and Princeton played what was billed as the first college football game. However, it wasn’t until the 1880s that a great rugby player from Yale, Walter Camp, pioneered rules changes that slowly transformed rugby into the new game of American Football.

Meanwhile, athletic clubs that sponsored a great variety of sports teams became a popular phenomenon in the United States in the years immediately after the Civil War. One of the sports the athletic club embraced was football.

By the 1880s, most athletic clubs had a football team. Competition was heated and each club vowed to stock its teams with the best players available. Toward this end, some clubs obtained jobs for star players. Others “awarded” expensive trophies or watches to their players, who would in turn pawn their awards, only to receive them again and again after each game they played. A popular practice was to offer double expense money to players for their services. Since football players were supposed to be amateurs, these practices were questioned by the Amateur Athletic Union but for every tactic declared illegal, a new one was developed.

2. Baseball

The real history of baseball is actually a bit complicated, and the true origins remain uncertain.

People have used bats to hit balls since ancient Egypt. In many societies throughout Europe, bat and ball games were common. One common theory is that American baseball has its origins in the British game of rounders, though it is more likely that both rounders and baseball have at least some origins in the sport of cricket. There are 18th century references to a British game called baseball, but the sport bears little resemblance to the American pastime.

Baseball in America would really take off during the 19th century, but there remains debate and speculation about how it was invented. For a long time, the first team to play baseball under modern rules was believed to be the New York Knickerbockers. Team founder Alexander Cartwright and a committee would create the Knickerbocker Rules in 1845, dealing with organizational matters but also outlining rules of the game. However, it seems that many of these rules were actually originally written for the Gotham Club in 1837, the team the Knickerbockers had broken away from.  

The first known competitive baseball game between two teams using these “Knickerbocker Rules” was played at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey, on June 19th, 1846. The New York nine defeated the Knickerbockers 23 to 1, but the new rules would nonetheless be adopted across the New York area.

3. Basketball

In contrast to other sports, basketball has a clear origin. It is not the evolution from an ancient game or another sport and the inventor is well known: Dr. James Naismith.

Naismith was born in 1861 in Ramsay township, Ontario, Canada. He graduated as a physician at McGill University in Montreal and was primarily interested in sports physiology.

In 1891, while working as a physical education teacher at the YMCA International Training School (today, Springfield College) in the United States, Naismith was faced with the problem of finding in 14 days an indoor game to provide “athletic distraction” for the students at the School for Christian Workers (Naismith was also a Presbyterian minister).

After discarding the idea of adapting outdoor games like soccer and lacrosse, Naismith recalled the concept of a game of his school days known as duck-on-a-rock that involved accuracy attempting to knock a “duck” off the top of a large rock by tossing another rock at it.

Starting from there, Naismith developed a set of 13 rules that gave origin to the game of basketball.

Of course it was not exactly as we know it today. The first game was played with a soccer ball and two peach baskets nailed 10-feet high used as goals, on a court just half the size of a present-day court. The baskets retained their bottoms so balls scored into the basket had to be poked out with a long dowel each time and dribbling (bouncing of the ball up and down while moving) was not part of the original game.

The sport was an instant success and thanks to the initial impulse received by the YMCA movement, basketball’s popularity quickly grew nationwide and was introduced in many nations. Although Naismith never saw the game develop into the spectacular game we know these days, he had the honor to witness basketball become an Olympic sport at the 1936 games held in Berlin.

“There may be people that have more talent than you, but there’s no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do.”

Derek Jeter.

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