Welcome to planet Fancaster

For educational purposes and with Special Permission of Don L. Wulffson, Author, HOW SPORTS CAME TO BE, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, 1980.

	BASKETBALL Originally, a basketball could only be advanced by passing. Around 1900, pro players added dribbling-but they dribbled overhead, tapping the ball up in the air as they ran! (Submitted by Don Wulffson, author of When Human Heads Were Footballs) photo attached

	BOWLING Bowling began as a religious ceremony and is at least 7,000 years old. It is one of the oldest of all sports. Stone Age people, the ancient Egyptians, and the early inhabitants of the South Sea Islands all played forms of the game.

	TABLE TENNIS (PING-PONG) Table tennis was invented in England during the nineteenth century. All the equipment used in those early days was homemade. The ball was made of string. Books put down the middle of a table made the first net. The paddle was cut out of a piece of thick cardboard.

	BASEBALL In the beginning, it took four strikes to make an out. In the early days of baseball, there were no bases. Instead, wooden stakes were used to show the runners path. In the very beginning there was only one stake. A score was made when the batter ran to the stake and back to home plate. In those days, the fielders were allowed to throw the ball at the runner to make an out. This was called plugging.`

	GOLF The word golf comes from the Dutch word kolf, meaning club. The first golf club was a stick with a bent end. In time, separate wooden heads were bound to the sticks. Later, iron heads were used in place of the wooden ones. The first Golf balls were made of solid wood.

	BOXING Boxing has been popular since the earliest beginnings of civilization. Pictures at least 7,000 years old show men boxing with their hands wrapped with some sort of material. People in some primitive tribes are known to have fought with their hands protected by thick pads of string. Some island people turned their fists into deadly weapons by arming them with rows of shark teeth. In the earliest times, boxing knew no rules, ring, or rounds. A fight ended only when one of the boxers lay beaten and bleeding. Boxing was an important sport in the early days of Rome and Greece. Until 400 B.C., fighters wound soft strips of leather around their hands and arms. Then came gloves of hardened leather, which, in many ways were like brass knuckles. Then came an even uglier and more dangerous invention-the roman cestus. The cestus was a leather hand-covering studded with sharp little metal nuggets. Fights in those days were often to the death.

	SKIING Skiing began in Northern Europe and Asia long before the dawn of history. Pictures and carvings of skiers done by Stone Age people have been found in Russia and other places. Even more interesting, a perfectly preserved ski was found in a bog in Norway. After examining it, scientists concluded that the ski was close to 5,000 years old. The word ski, which comes from northern Europe, means a splinter cut from a log. Pronounced shee, it is the Scandinavian term for shoe According to experts, the first skis were probably made from the bones of large animals. Later came wooden skis made from slabs of pine, spruce, or ash.

	BADMINTON The game of badminton was originally called shuttlecock. The name was changed to badminton around 1870. At that time there lived an English duke who loved sports, especially the game of shuttlecocks. Almost every weekend the duke invited his friends over to play the game at his home. The dukes home was a mansion-a mansion called Badminton. Little by little the game took on the name of the place where it was such a popular pastime.