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What it is
It is among the earliest and oldest sports played in America. It specifically originated in Central America with the Mexicans in the Southern part of Mexico. Different towns thrived in this game which was to them more than a sport. It was both a sport, a religious activity and it was also political. It was also social because it brought the people in towns together.
The sport part of Mesoamerican ballgame involved getting a ball made of rubber into one among many rings. The ball was solid and would weigh up to three kilograms. While playing to put the ball through a ring, players were not to use their hands but were to use their thighs, shoulders, elbows and even knees to pass this ball. The game was only played by men. It was significantly played by warriors who were to prove their strength or get rewarded. While in other towns and Kingdoms, captives of wars were
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They could be as many as twenty in a town. It is said that Mesoamerica had up to thirteen hundred ball courts. They were built inside with walls that were either bent towards the centre or vertical. There was an enclosing in the courts where the player only played. This is because as was in the ancient days, the sport was observed as a matter of life and death for the winner and losers. The ball courts were built mythically orienting themselves to the North and South of the compass.
The ball courts were built such that, they had markers on them, more so on the lengths of the courts, mostly three. This markers were also symbolic in that, they represented the movements of the moon and the sun in relation to the ground.
When ball gaming became widespread, it became part of North America too where they built courts or the same. The sport thrived in many countries and cities and became with time an architectural and social activity than a culture.
The cultural and Mythological importance of Mesoamerican
b. To what extent has the history of Mesoamerica been taught from a Eurocentric perspective? What theories, ideas, and/or terminology are problematic when trying to assert an Indigenous perspective? (For example: Bering Strait, Malintzin, Cuauhtemoc, Human Sacrifice...there are many more examples!)
Professional basketball started to develop. As said by Reema “Teams flourished across the country throughout the 1920s. There were thousands of men's professional basketball teams in towns and cities all over the United States. Sometimes Players jumped from team to team and teams played in different cities. Leagues sometimes came and went”(slide 9). Many teams started to develop like the Celtics and the Harlem Globetrotters.
Baseball is a game of skill that is played with a hard ball and a bat between two teams of nine players each at a time on the playing field at once. Although many different people play Baseball all over the world it is most popular in the United States. It is so popular in fact, it is referred to as the national pastime of the United States because of the tradition and popularity associated with the game. Baseball consists of many complicated rules. It also has a very elaborate history. One can not fully understand the game America has grown to love until learning about not only the rules but also the history.
In the early 20th century, the dominant theme in American sport was the spread and influence of “organized team sport” in American culture. Organized team sport gained attention and importance as early as the late 1800’s with the influence of Luther Halsey Guick. Guick viewed sports as a social tool that sped up an individual’s ability to self-govern and thus he pushed for public funded playgrounds in big cities. Guick also focused on integrating team competition into the school system as much as possible; he was incredibly successful in this endeavour and team competition became an integral part of the education system. One obstacle faced in physical education was the need for an indoor sport that could be played during the winter; this posed multiple obstacles in itself. Developing a game that could be played in a small enclosed area and was not rough, proved to be a challenging feat that was eventually overcome by James Naismith. The development of basketball furthered the integration of organized team sports into American culture.
Like the bald eagle, baseball has become an icon for the term “American”. It was the nation’s first major sport and quickly was coined America’s pastime. It was created from a combination of other games during the 1840’s and became increasingly popular during the years of the Civil War (Brinkley 392). In their
The sport of basketball started off with a peach basket and a soccer ball and since then has evolved to become one of the famous and entertaining sports in the
Sports, especially ones that involve a ball, are modern America’s favorite pastimes. Well, this was also true for the Mesoamerican people of the ninth century. While the event does not have a specific name, it is referred to as the Mesoamerican ballgame. Like basketball, this game was played on a long, rectangular court (Stokstad 405). The ball itself is said to be pretty heavy and rubber. Unlike basketball, the players wore protective gear because the actual sport of the game was to use everything but your hands to hit the ball. The object was to make it into the protruding stone goal, in which the ball would enter horizontally and not longitudinally. Some scholars suggest that perhaps the Mesoamerican ballgame was used in times of warfare,
The article “America’s Pastime” by Robert S. Fay and Tom Pfannoch, teaches readers about the history of baseball. The first unofficial baseball games were played in the early 1800’s, these games otherwise known as “town ball”. One of the earliest organizations to influence modernized baseball was the knickerbockers, the knickerbockers put together a set of rules and gave the game structure which helped standardize how the game is played today. Soon after, the game spread throughout the country and gained popularity among players and spectators as well, which led to the professional sport of baseball. Following the professionalization of the sport many leagues were formed, the present day MLB (Major League Baseball) has been considered America’s
Tlachtli was a serious matter to the players and to the cultures of Mesoamerica. The game was intense and serious and sometimes fatal injuries were inflicted by the solid, heavy nine pound ball. Back when Spain controlled the area, Spanish chronicler Diego Durán explained that some bruises caused by the ball were so bad that
The beginning of baseball has had it twist on who started the game and who made the rules to the game. The sport we know as baseball was original name stickball before it became an organized sport. Baseball was a game that many just played as part of their moderate exercise for recreational purpose or time and they used the game to stay in shape. It was usually a middle class white -collar worker who played the game.
For over one hundred years, Americans young and old have enjoyed the sport of baseball. Some are actively and some leisurely. No matter which role the person has, he or she enjoys America’s favorite pastime, baseball, but is it originally an American sport? Over the many years that the sport has existed, there has been a variety of theories. The origin of baseball is unclear because some believe it began in England, others claim Abner Doubleday originated the sport, and a third faction claims it evolved in New York.
Furthermore, the author claims that owing to the balls' uniform size, the people might use them in their trades as a unique system of weight and measure. In contrast, the lecture dismisses the idea due to the fact that they have been built from various type of stones with different density. So their weights were also different, despite the uniform shape and size of them, and the people could not utilize them as something to show the weight.
First, the reading argues that the grooves and the hole on the surface of the carved balls indicate that people could hold and throw them for hunting and fighting. On the other hand, the lecturer refutes this claim and explains that the ancient weapons like arrows and hand weapons had a sign of wearing which there is no sign of it on the balls. Also, the surface of the ball is not cracked or broken and seems very well was preserved.
U.S soccer started when the English settlers came to populate America. The game was originally played across an entire town with two nets at either end. Players tackled each other to get the ball to one end of the town and in a
Some interpretations suggest that plays were spread out along the court and the ball was passed at a fast rate. The teams seemed to vary in size from