Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-01-06
THE GAME AND BALLS
IMPORTANCE OF THE SPHERE IN
OUTDOOR SPORTS.
The Principal Form of Amusement
Among Civilized Peoples-An-
tiquity Of the Ball.

From the London Chronicle.
Sociology is yet In its infancy When 1t
becomes adolescent, one of the chapters I
hope to read will be about the ball and its
influence civilization. By 'the BALI /
mean what reporters call-according to the
game they are writing of-the sphere, the
leather. the pill, the globule, the ivory,
the shuttlecock, and a hundred other
names. I mean that various shaped OBJ
ject which Is the basis of all modern games
without exception. One has only to TIL
through list Of modern games to see
how hard 1t would be to find an exception.
Tennis, cricket, foot ball, base ball, bill
liards hockey, badminton, golf ping pong.
These are all ball games. In one case the
ball is hard, in another soft: in one case 1t
ia spherical, in another, round; in lacrosse,
it is round solid ball; in ping pong it is
hollow ball; in badminton, the object is
without shape, and at first sight not per-
tanning to a ball at ALL until in the end
one sees that it Is a featheled ball. The
ball Is the first thing a modern child ia
given, and 1t promptly invents a score OF
games; the bail is the last thing modern
old gentleman drives-usually into bunker.
Invented Itselfe
What is the history of the ball? I doubt
if there are any records of it's earliest use;
certainly none of its inventor. Probably
1t is one of those things that have no
traceable origin. Probably it invented itself,
a 1oof did. Round stones or skulls. or
apples-we may presume-were played with
and initiated in other materials, until the
glory of the ball made itself felt We
know that Nausicaa was playing at ball
with the maidens when Ulysses awoke IN
her island; the cup and ball game was
made as likely as not in some metropolis
that existed before Babylon. But if its
history Is as yet unwritten and uncertain,
the fact stares US in the face that the
boundaries of the balls influence are CO.
extensive with civilization. MI. kipling-
with his muddied oafs-has begun to see
the decline and fall of civilization-of Eng
lish civilization at any rate-in our use of
it, He has condemned games, or, in other
words, he has condemned the ball Yet
the ball is-so far as we can see-one of
the chief agencies in civilization.
Such statement perhaps requires some
proof. 1t is not enough to show that the
people who do not play at ball are barba
rians The Chinaman flies kites instead, and
that may prove his scientific instincts. Be
sides, savages do play at ball to some ex-
tent. Lacrosse is an adaptation of an In
dian game; balloons, which are inflated
balls, come, believe, from the east. The
thing required is to show why the people
who play at ball most are more civilized
than the rest.
Prehistoric Games.
! take 1t, then, that while the prehistoric
child may have played with ball, the pre-
historic man did not. The prehistoric man
hunted instead He ran after or ran from
the dinosaur and the mastodon; he evaded
or pursued his fellow prehistoric man. Thus
he enjoyed on the one hand what doctors
call exercise, and on the other what poets
cal the glory of motion. Motion Is what a
man will have and must have, as well as
exercise; and so it came about that when
the dinosaur was killed off, and the disad-
vantages of always being in danger of pur-
suit by fellowman became SO apparent
that a state Of comparative peace was
called, man cast about for other ways of
supplying his need of motion. He found
the ball. Exercise simply he could have
found in digging or running or walking but
he wanted glorifed exercise. The nations
that found the ball found glorif1ed exer-
else, and became civilized; the others be-
came sedentary and stay -at-home-in short
they remained savages.
This, to be sure, is putting the history Of
the influence of the ball into a nutshell, but
il 1t is not true, 1 do not know how the
growing power of the ball is to be explained.
That it Is growing is undeniable. Games
(Which are the expositions OF the way in
which ball may be enjoyed are ousting
sports like hunting, shooting, and other
pleasant survivals of a barbarous era. They
are ousting war. Mr.. Kipling says they are
ousting industry. Industry, Of course, has
to be considered for 1t is the other side Of
civilization But the enjoyment OF the ball
shows us the one side. We can even trace
it's influence on the emancipation of wom-
en-. Women used to do the worlds drudg-
cry and never play at ball-except prin-
cesses Even d century ago they were still
in bondage, because they thought hunt-the-
slipper was game. 1t isn't, OF course NO
civilized man would play at hunt-the-slip-
per for a moment longer than he could help
and only a very young man would play az
all. Or at kiss-in- the-ring. Women stiH
do it. am told, but that is because their
emancipation is incomplete. Some day,
when they pursue balls with a perfect ar
dor, as men do, they will find themselves
completely free.
Meanwhile. / commend this article to
these who are trying to invent new games
They would save much time and trouble II
they would remember that no game can De
played without a ball.