Item #: OLDBASKETBALL
Category: Basketballs
Your Price: $102.86

First type laced leather basketballs used between 1890s and 1920s & 30s era. These are great replica balls as old balls that bounce are extinct. Hand made, hand stitched and hand sewn of specially aged and tanned fine leather. Bounce it, dribble it, shoot it !! Just like the early players did. Great for special gifts, awards, commemoratives, or decor, for your game room, den or office. 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 Naismith's 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 inbound 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 High school, College and Pro game of today.