Sports Equipment

Baseball In Australia ... In 1867, Victorian cricketers William Gaggin and Louis Goldsmith tried to set up a game of baseball at Yarra Park but were disrupted by fans arriving for a local Australian football match. The first competitive series was played between the Surry Baseball Club and members of the New South Wales Cricket Association over June/July 1878...

History Of Sport ... Sports that are at least two and a half thousand years old include hurling (similar to field hockey) in Ireland, harpastum (similar to rugby) in Rome, cuju (similar to association football) in China, and polo in Persia... It was predictably in Greece that sports were first instituted formally, with the first Olympic Games recorded in 776 BC in Olympia, where they were celebrated until 393 AD... the Panathenaia of Athens, included musical, reading and other non-athletic contests in addition to regular sports events...

Basketball ... A regulation basketball ring consists of a rim 18 inches in diameter and 10 feet high mounted to a backboard. A team can score a field goal by shooting the ball through the basket during regular play...

Variations Of Basketball ... Roster sizes above five players per team are uncommon even in informal games, as the court generally becomes too crowded to allow movement and space to develop between players. Six-on-six basketball was a form of basketball played in the twentieth century mainly among high school girls...

History Of Association Football ... During the early 1860s, there were increasing attempts in England to unify and reconcile the various football games that were played in the public schools as well in the industrial north under the Sheffield Rules. In 1862, J...

History Of Baseball Outside The United States ... In 1973, struggles in the FIBA led to a dissident organisation, the Federacion Mundial de Beisbol Amateur (FEMBA), which organised its own World Championships. The two organisations were reconciled in 1976, forming the International Baseball Association (AINBA)...

Names For Association Football ... The term association football has never been widely used, although in Britain some clubs in rugby football strongholds adopted the suffix Association Football Club (A. F. C.) to avoid confusion with the dominant sport in their area, and FIFA, the world governing body for the sport, is a French-language acronym of "Fédération Internationale de Football Association" – the International Federation of Association Football. "Soccer football", is used less often than it once was: the United States Soccer Federation was known as the United States Soccer Football Association from 1945 until 1974, when it adopted its current name...

Baseball In Japan ... A team cannot have more than four foreign players, limiting the cost and competition for expensive players of other nationalities, similar to rules in many European sports leagues' roster limits on non-European players...

Football ... In the twentieth century, the various codes of football have become amongst the most popular team sports in the world...

Sportsmanship ... Sportsmanship can be conceptualized as an enduring and relatively stable characteristic or disposition such that individuals differ in the way they are generally expected to behave in sport situations. In general, sportsmanship refers to virtues such as fairness, self-control, courage, and persistence, and has been associated with interpersonal concepts of treating others and being treated fairly, maintaining self-control if dealing with others, and respect for both authority and opponents...

Sport ... Sport is generally recognised as activities which are based in physical athleticism or physical dexterity, with the largest major competitions such as the Olympic Games admitting only sports meeting this definition, and other organisations such as the Council of Europe using definitions precluding activities without a physical element from classification as sports... The International Olympic Committee (through ARISF) recognises both chess and bridge as bona fide sports, and SportAccord, the international sports federation association, recognises five non-physical sports, although limits the amount of mind games which can be admitted as sports... Sports are usually governed by a set of rules or customs, which serve to ensure fair competition, and allow consistent adjudication of the winner...

Origins Of Baseball ... Americans played a version of the English game rounders in the early 19th century which they called "Town Ball." In fact, early forms of baseball had a number of names, including "Base Ball," "Goal Ball " "Round Ball," "Fletch-catch," "stool ball," and, simply, "Base." In at least one version of the game, teams pitched to themselves, runners went around the bases in the opposite direction of today's game, and players could be put out by being hit with the ball. Like today, a batter was called out after three strikes...

Laws Of The Game (association Football) ... The actual law book has long contained 50 pages more of material, organized in numerous sections, that contain many diagrams but did not fit with the main 17 laws. In 2007, many of these additional sections along with much of the material from the FIFA Questions and Answers (Q& A), were restructured and put into a new Additional Instructions and Guidelines for the Referee section...

Sports Law ... In sports law, the piece of legislation often refers to the effort to achieve equality for women's sports in colleges... A critical piece of federal legislation, the Amateur Sports Act of 1978, guarantees certain due process rights including a hearing and an appeal for U. S... The subject of drug testing especially in international sports like cycling and track and field is under the jurisdiction of each sport's NGB and international federation, the USOC, the IOC, and the World Anti-Doping Agency...

Official (basketball) ... Officials are usually referred to as referees, however generally there is one lead referee and one or two umpires, depending on whether there is a two or three person crew. In the NBA, the lead official is called the crew chief and the other two officials are "referees"...

Association Football ... In general play, the goalkeepers are the only players allowed to touch the ball with their hands or arms, while the field players typically use their feet to kick the ball into position, occasionally using their torso or head to intercept a ball in midair. The team that scores the most goals by the end of the match wins...

English Public School Football Games ... First, the evidence suggests that, during the 16th century, they transformed the violent and chaotic, but popular "mob football" into organised team sports that were beneficial to schoolboys... This is a rather misleading translation of the original latin "Lusui erit follis pugillari spiritu tumens", which Francis Peabody Magoun translated as "In sport we shall have a ball inflated with air to kick" Even as early as 1519, Horman shows us that he was well aware of the value of sports to children's education and the need to temper their enthusiasm in order not to affect their studies: "There muste be a measure in gyuynge of remedies or sportynge to chyldren, leste they be wery of goynge to theyr boke if they haue none, or waxe slacke if they haue to many"...

Baseball ... Evolving from older bat-and-ball games, an early form of baseball was being played in England by the mid-eighteenth century. This game was brought by immigrants to North America, where the modern version developed...

History Of American Football ... American football resulted from several major divergences from rugby, most notably the rule changes instituted by Walter Camp, considered the "Father of American Football". Among these important changes were the introduction of the line of scrimmage and of down-and-distance rules...

Amateur Sports ... Some sports dealt with it relatively easily, such as golf, which decided in the late 19th century to tolerate competition between amateurs and professionals, while others were traumatised by the dilemma, and took generations to fully come to terms with professionalism even to a result of causing a breakdown in the sport (as in the case of rugby union and rugby league in 1895)... Present day By the early 21st century the Olympic Games and all the major team sports accepted professional competitors... However, there are still some sports which maintain a distinction between amateur and professional status with separate competitive leagues...

Professional Golf Tours ... Golf is one of the more lucrative sports in the world for both men and women, but it has a very different structure from other sports, especially team sports...