Commemorate NCAA March Madness and the
NBA Playoffs with a rare Antique style laced leather basketball.
Now extinct -these early basketballs are so rare that they normally
command museum prices. Celebrate NCAA basketball and NBA basketball
History by displaying the first basketball as part of your collection
or as a gift to a basketball fan. Laced leather basketballs are
the earliest balls and evoke the great spirit and tradition of the
earlry old time college and pro basketball teams.
Past Time Sports
makes the rare laced leather basketballs used between 1890s and
1920s era. These are great Replica ball as old balls that bounce
are extinct. Hand made, hand stitched and hand sewn of specially
aged and tanned fine leather. Ball is 32-33 1/2 inches in circumference
like the earliest balls. Bounce it, dribble it, shoot
it !! Just like the early players did.
Great for awards , commemorative , decorations, for your collection
or a gift for a basketball fan. Laser engraved or hand calligraphy
with school logos or recipients names or "Champs" and "date" looks
great. A highly prized award or gift these balls reflect back to
the origins of the game.
HISTORY HISTORY In 1891 Dr.
Naismith invented the game of Basketball. It was to bring team sport
indoors. The first ball was crude and handmade and hand-stitched
leather with an irregular shape and bladder. It was made to be passed.
It was soft and oversize up to 33 inches in circumference. Its laces
and handmade irregular seams made the ball much trickier to dribble
and shoot.
Full size, vintage balls like these are practically
extinct. Rare examples command museum prices. After each quarter,
if there was not a second ball to be used, balls had to be de-laced
and re-pumped up. Access to the bladder came from removing the laces.
Although the dribble was not officially sanctioned
until the early 1903-1906 years. A dribble was considered a pass
to oneself. There were no backboards. The ball was shot into the
peach basket and then someone had to climb up and retrieve it for
the next play.
Teams often were 7 in number. While Naismiths
original game hardly resembles basketball as it is played today,
the essence was there, and some similarities remain. The five second
time limit for throwing the ball inbounds is still used today. And
he had decided that the best way to put the ball in play was to
toss it in the air between two players a maneuver that would eventually
become the center jump. Naismith wanted to control the roughness
of the early game by having the referee call fouls. Yet, there was
no mention of dribbling the basketball.
And in the early days of the game women began
playing almost as much as men. It also didn't take the game long
to spread from YMCA Gyms, where it was born, to colleges. There
is a record of basketball appearing in both men's and women's colleges
as early as 1892.
The game took hold fast. During the next few years
the rules began to change. In the original rules a field goal counted
as only one point. Later field goals were raised to three points
before dropping back to two points. A point was awarded when the
opposing team committed three fouls, but before long that was dropped
and free throws were awarded.
By 1897 the free throw line was established at
15 feet from the hoop. Other changes also began to appear. The first
metal hoops were put in use as early as 1893. And, the first backboards
came into existence two years later. It also didn't take long for
the dribble to come into play, giving the game more flow and avoiding
a stalemated situation where a pass just couldn't be made. The dribble
actually evolved out of another rule that allowed a player to throw
the ball in the air and catch it again, in effect a pass to himself.
It was a result of trying to decide what to do when such passes
bounced that the dribble was eventually born.
There was another early rule that also had to
go. It stipulated that when a ball went out of bounds the first
player to touch it would get to throw it back in. This led to some
wild dashes after the ball, looking almost like a group of football
players chasing a fumble.
A new rule, which wasn't accepted everywhere until
about 1913 said that the team last touching the ball before it went
out would lose possession. That definitely made more sense and took
some more of the early mayhem out of the game. The officially first
recorded game between two colleges was 1895 . Score 9 - 3. In 1903
there was another interesting score between two college teams 159
-5. A player named Michael Anderson from Bucknell scored 80 points
in the romp! Who said there were no Larry Birds or Michael Jordans
back then?
Leagues sprang up. The game grew for both women
and men. And tradition and the great game evolved into the modern
Highschool, College and Pro game of today.
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