Balls

A ball is a round or spherical object that is used most often in sports and games. In most games using balls, the play of the game follows the state of the ball as it is hit, kicked, or thrown by players. more...

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History

Balls are made from many different materials, but leather, rubber, and synthetics are the most common in modern times. However, balls made from indigenous materials, particularly from animal parts, were once the norm. For instance, among the Yahgan (or Yámana) of South America a ball called a kalaka was made from an albatross web (foot) that was blown up and stuffed with goose feathers and sewn. The Yahgan also used an inflated seal stomach as a ball. Among the Navajo of North America, balls were made from buckskin bags filled with seeds or grain and held together by a drawstring.

Some form of ball game is portrayed on early Egyptian monuments. Each spring two large groups of people, each representing one of their gods, acted out a contest that used a round, wooden ball and crooked sticks. The object was to drive the ball through the opposing goal. The side that knocked the ball past the defenders won. Even among the Romans, who disliked participatory sports, ball play was extremely popular. The Roman baths set aside apartments for ball play, and many gentlemen had ball courts in their private villas. The ancient Roman ball was usually made of leather strips sewn together and filled with various materials. The smallest, the harpastum, was a hard ball stuffed with feathers. The largest, the follis, contained an air-filled bladder, similar to a modern football (soccer ball) or basketball. In many early games the ball was simply thrown back and forth among individuals in a group, but there were also genuine team games and competitions among the ancient Greeks. Ball games were especially popular at Sparta. One early Greek game known as episkyros involved two teams of equal numbers. Between them a white line was laid out, and, at some distance behind each team, another line was marked. The play consisted in throwing the ball back and forth until one team in the exchange was finally forced back over its rear line. Ball playing also is of great antiquity in western Europe. The ball also served other functions in Greece as well. The ballot is named after the Italian ballotta ("little ball"), from the ancient Greek custom of casting votes with small balls. Often, white and black balls were used--white to vote yes and black to vote no. The word "blackball," meaning to exclude someone from membership by casting a negative vote, goes back to this practice. When polo was created in Persia around 550bc the ball was used for the 'game of the kings', in Polo the ball is hit with malets carried by men on teamed horses, this is yet again another early use for the ball.

An early form of lacrosse was well established among the American Indians in pre-Columbian times. Ball games such as lacrosse were mainly of a religious nature, dedicated to the gods and played to ensure the well-being of the community. Among Native American children, kickball was encouraged by the adults. A Mayan clay figurine from the 8th century AD depicting a ball player wearing protective gloves and hip padding was found in Jaina, Mexico. Ball games were important to the ancient Mayans and other Middle American peoples, and almost all Mayan cities had ball courts—rectangular areas enclosed by tiers of seats for spectators. At heights of 20 to 30 feet (6 to 9 metres), a stone ring through which the ball was to be thrown was set into the wall, in a game known as pok-a-tok or tlachtli. The ball was made of rubber and was approximately 6 inches (15.2 cm) in diameter. It is said that Columbus found the Indians of Central America playing with solid, black balls made of vegetable gum and took some of these rubber balls back to Europe. Long ball, a traditional ball game still played among the Onondaga peoples of the Iroquois in upstate New York, is a form of tag employing a bat and a ball. Among the Igbo of Nigeria, boys play okpasa, a game in which three boys, with one in back and two in front, must avoid being touched by the ball. In villages in Vietnam, a traditional ball and chopstick game is played by children. Japanese children played with balls of tightly wadded tissue paper wrapped with string.

Read more at Wikipedia.org