GE1905

TEAM SPORTS

I. Basketball
Basketball was invented during the school year of 1891-92 at Springfield College in Springfield,
Massachusetts. Dr. James A. Naismith conceived the idea of attaching peach baskets at opposite ends
of the gym on the track that encircled the playing floor. This is where the height of 10 feet for the
basket was arrived at. Basketball derives its name from the original ball and basket used in the first
games. The game was introduced in YMCA’s across America and also to foreign countries. Basketball
became part of the Olympic Games in 1936.

Today, it is an immensely popular team sport enjoyed by people of all ages. Two (2) teams of five (5)
players each try to score more points than their opponent by shooting a ball through a hoop elevated
10ft above the ground. The game is played on a rectangular floor called the court, and there is a hoop
at each end.

II. Volleyball
Volleyball now has international popularity and has been in the television spotlight. It has been an
Olympic sport since 1964. It is one of the world's most popular sports. The game of volleyball was
invented in 1895 by William G. Morgan, a teacher at a YMCA in Holyoke, Massachusetts. He combined
parts of tennis, baseball, basketball, and handball to create a new game to be played indoors by
people who wanted less physical contact than basketball. Morgan borrowed the net from tennis and
raised it 6ft, 6 inches above the floor, a little higher than an average man's head.

It is a fun sport that is easy to learn and can be played in a gym, at the beach, or on the grass. Playing
volleyball will help improve one’s cardio, flexibility, balance, and coordination.

III. Football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball with the foot to score
a goal. Association football (known as soccer in some countries); gridiron football (specifically
American football or Canadian football); Australian rules football; rugby football (either rugby league
or rugby union); and Gaelic football are the different variations of football, which are known as
football codes.

The game before the 19th century referred to any number of ball games played on foot. The rules of
these games differed from one another, some allowing the use of hands "running games", others
forbidding it "kicking games". One legend has it that the football game rugby, American football's
ancestor, was invented when an Englishman grew tired of the no-hands restriction, picked the ball up,
and ran. Out of an interest to enforce the rules of the game the other players tackled the fellow. So
much fun was this diversion that running football games were born. Whether this is true or not is
unknown, but what is known is that football does have its origins in the games played by pre-colonial
European peasants.

IV. Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball game played between two (2) teams of nine (9) players each, who take turns
batting and fielding. The batting team attempts to score runs by hitting a ball that is thrown by the
pitcher with a bat swung by the batter, then running counter-clockwise around a series of four (4)

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bases: first, second, third, and home plate. A run is scored when a player advances around the bases
and returns to home plate.

Players on the batting team take turns hitting against the pitcher of the fielding team, which tries to
prevent runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on the batting team who reaches
a base safely can later attempt to advance to subsequent bases during teammates' turns batting, such
as on a hit or by other means. The teams switch between batting and fielding whenever the fielding
team records three (3) outs. One (1) turn batting for both teams, beginning with the visiting team,
constitutes an inning. A game is composed of nine (9) innings, and the team with the greater number
of runs at the end of the game wins. Baseball has no game clock, although almost all games end in the
ninth inning.

Baseball evolved from older bat-and-ball games already being played in England by the mid-18th
century. This game was brought by immigrants to North America, where the modern version
developed. By the late 19th century, baseball was widely recognized as the national sport of the United
States. Baseball is now popular in North America and parts of Central and South America, the
Caribbean, and East Asia.

In the United States and Canada, professional Major League Baseball (MLB) teams are divided into the
National League (NL) and American League (AL), each with three divisions: East, West, and Central. The
major league champion is determined by playoffs that culminate in the World Series. The top- level
of play is similarly split in Japan between the Central and Pacific Leagues and in Cuba between the
West League and East League.

V. Handball
The origins of handball can be traced back to medieval times, but it was in 1906 that the rules of
modern handball were first created in Denmark. The game is hugely popular in Northern and Eastern
Europe but is played around the world. It is traditionally played indoors but there have been variations
such as field handball and beach handball (sometimes referred to as sandball) that have been played
outdoors.

Handball is a team sport in which two (2) teams of seven (7) players each (six (6) outfield players and
a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands to throw it into the goal of the other team. A standard
match consists of two (2) periods of 30 minutes, and the team that scores more goals wins.

Modern handball is played on a court 40 by 20 meters (131 by 66 ft.), with a goal in the middle of each
end. The goals are surrounded by a 6-meter (20 ft.) zone where only the defending goalkeeper is
allowed; goals must be scored by throwing the ball from outside the zone or while "jumping" into it.
The sport is usually played indoors, but outdoor variants exist in the forms of field handball and Czech
handball, which were more common in the past, and beach handball. The game is fast and high-
scoring: professional teams now typically score between 20 and 35 goals each, though lower scores
were not uncommon until a few decades ago. Body contact is permitted by the defenders trying to
stop the attackers from approaching the goal.

The game was codified at the end of the 19th century in northern Europe and Germany. The modern
set of rules was published in 1917 in Germany and had several revisions since. The first international
games were played under these rules for men in 1925 and for women in 1930. Men's handball was
first played at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin as outdoors, and the next time at the 1972 Summer

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Olympics in Munich as indoors, and has been an Olympic sport since. Women's team handball was
added at the 1976 Summer Olympics.

The International Handball Federation was formed in 1946 and, as of 2016, has 197 member
federations. The sport is most popular in the countries of continental Europe, which have won all
medals but one in the men's world championships since 1938, and all medals in the women's world
championships until 2013, when Brazil broke the series. The game also enjoys popularity in the Far
East, North Africa, and parts of South America.

VI. Sepak Takraw

Sepak Takraw is a volleyball-like game that originated in Southeast Asia. With a literal translation of
‘Kick Ball’, 3 players compete against their opposition on a volleyball style court with a net across the
middle.

Unlike volleyball, in Sepak Takraw, players are not allowed to use their hands to play the ball and are
required to use their feet, head, knees, and chest to touch the ball. Popular across Southeast Asia, it
is particularly popular in Malaysia where it is locally known as 'Sepak Raga' and Thailand where it is
called 'Takraw'.

The game’s history stretches back to the 15th century with slightly differing versions of the game being
played in different parts of Southeast Asia. It was in the 1940s, however, that the first set of formalized
rules were introduced, and the game took the official name of Sepak Takraw with ISTAF, the
International Sepak Takraw Federation governing the sport worldwide where it is growing in
popularity year-on-year. Outside of Southeast Asia, the game is particularly popular in the USA and
Canada and other western countries where there are significant Southeast Asian communities.

VII. Softball
Softball, a variant of baseball and a popular participant sport, particularly in the United States. It is
generally agreed that softball developed from a game called indoor baseball, first played in Chicago
in 1887. It became known in the United States by various names, such as kitten ball, mush ball,
diamond ball, indoor-outdoor, and playground ball. There were wide variances in playing rules, size,
and type of playing equipment, and dimensions of the playing field.

In 1923 a rules committee was appointed to publish and circulate a standard set of rules. The
committee was later enlarged to form the International Joint Rules Committee on Softball, which
came to include representatives of a number of organizations that promote and sponsor softball. The
Amateur Softball Association of America, organized in 1933, came to be the recognized governing
agency for promotion and control of organized national competition.

The Fédération Internationale de Softball (International Softball Federation), which was formed in
1952, acts as a liaison between more than 40 softball organizations of several countries. Headquarters
are in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The federation coordinates international competition and regular
regional and world championship tournaments for men and women. In 1996, a women’s softball
competition was added to the Olympic Games

The fundamentals of softball are the same as those of baseball. Batting and fielding strategies are
similar, but softball is played in a much smaller area, and a game is only seven innings long. Despite
the name, the ball used in softball is not very soft. It is about 12 inches (30.5 cm.) in circumference

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(11 or 12 inches for slow-pitch), which is 3 inches (8 cm.) larger than a baseball. Softball recreational
leagues for children often use an 11-inch ball. The infield in softball is smaller than an adult or high
school baseball diamond but identical to that used by Little League Baseball; each base is 60 ft. (18
meters) from the next, as opposed to baseball's 90 ft. (27 meters). Also, the infield in fast-pitch softball
does not have grass verses baseball at any level that does have grass.

REFERENCES
Sepak takraw Rules. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.rulesofsport.com/sports/sepak-takraw.html
The basics of baseball. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.howbaseballworks.com/TheBasics.htm
Sparecom. (2019). A Brief History of Football. Retrieved from http://www.historyoffootball.net
Handball Rules (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.rulesofsport.com/sports/handball.html
What is handball? (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ctspanish.com/legends/king/handball.htm
Tikkanen, A. (2017). Softball. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/sports/softball

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