A 100-year old book review

I have a "Spalding's Official Basket Ball Guide" from 100 years ago. Spalding's Guides were the bibles of the sports back then and they had been making baseball guides and football guides for years but began with basketball in 1910...when the game was called "basket ball"...

The issue sold for 10 cents, and the cover says...
"Codified and adopted by a Rules Committee representing the Young Men's Christian Association, Amateur Athletic Union of the United States, and National Collegiate Athletic Association."

So the YMCA, AAU, and NCAA all got together and..."adopted uniform rules for the game of basket ball".

The Spalding Guides were so respected in their days, that when the uniform rules were adopted, those organizations then approached Spalding to publish the Basket Ball Guide.

The book is in great shape for 100 years old and I just thought I'd give you some excerpts........

The first part is the History of Basket Ball...and it details how the game was developed in 1891, and at that time there were only 13 rules set out in a simple rule book by Dr. Naismith in 1892.
Originally the official ball was an ordinary soccer ball, and some of the earliest rules included...
--"teams could consist of any number of players as long as the sides were even"
--"if one team committed three consecutive fouls a goal was award to the opponent"
--"tackling is prohibited"
--"a score is made when the ball is thrown into and stays in the goal (basket)"
...so if it bounced out it didn't count!

Shortly after 1892 the number of players was limited to nine, then rules ultimately changed further and only five were allowed.
The game of basketball exploded and this book details how incredibly popular it was all over the world, the Phillipines, India, England, everywhere...and Dr. Naismith actively traveled to those other nations to help set up the game and instruct.

By the time this book was written many of those rules were changed and new ones added...the book goes into great detail defining and describing all the different rules violations such as "Holding", "Blocking", "Charging", etc...but I'll stick to the more interesting parts of the book...

Here were some of rules that were in effect in basketball 100 years ago...

-the dimensions of the court could be as small as 60 ft by 35 ft. and maximum 90 ft by 50 ft.
-Halves were 20 min. each just as they are today, but clock did not stop.
"a period in which players could catch their breath may be allowed" in the middle of each half especially for younger teams of elementary school players.
-goals should be 10 feet off the floor
-the diameter of the goal ring was increased from 15 to 18 inches
-one of the weirdest rules was that in this era -- dribbling meant either bouncing the ball off the floor or "air dribbling" or batting it upward with one hand and repeating the maneuver, as long as the ball did not come to rest in the player's hands.
The rules clearly state that "the ball must be batted in the air instead of tossed in the air"!
Air dribbling was not eliminated until around 1920.
-the game was rough and a certain amount of contact was allowed..thus requiring a penalty for "Unnecessary Roughness".
As further proof of the game's roughness -- in the back of the guide, Spalding sells all kinds of elbow, knee, and hip pads, along with the balls and other equipment.
-after four fouls the player was disqualified, but it sounds like not a lot of fouls were called.
-during a jump ball the jumpers must keep one hand behind their back. If either player does not do this they are called for a foul for delaying the game!
-"there shall be no coaching from the side lines during the progress of the game"
-the rule for determining who gets the ball when it goes out of bounds is a new rule, since previously the ball was to be inbounded by the team that went and got the ball first. This led to some pretty interesting battles off the court and down the stairwells!
The new rule says... "the nearest opponent of the player causing it to go out shall put it in play by passing, bouncing, or rolling it onto the court in any direction."

There's also sections describing basketball in all regions of the US, and the part about Illinois mentions
"Bradley Poly. Institute, Peoria, Ill." prominently. Fred C. Brown was coach, and Frank Mercer was Captain. They even have photos of Bradley players!

And here's a great one...
the section on
"Missouri Valley Conference Basketball" is actually written by Dr. James A. Naismith, University of Kansas.
(Kansas was part of the MVC from 1907 through 1928, Bradley joined in 1948.
The schools in the conference 100 years ago were...
"Ames" (currently known as Iowa State), Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Washington Univ. (St. Louis), and Drake!

Other photos of Illinois teams include...
-"Illinois Wesleyan University"
-"Shurtleff College", Alton, Ill.
-"Southern Illinois State Normal School", Carbondale, Ill.
-"Eureka College"
-"Hedding College", Abingdon, Ill.
-"St. Viator College", Bourbonnais, Ill. (now known as Olivet Nazarene)
-"University of Illinois", Urbana, Ill.

The Union College team picture has jerseys saying UBBT (presumably for Union basket ball team), Swarthmore and Lehigh have SBB and LBB respectively.
Most players are rather muscular and wear pads!

I could spend more time on this as I find it interesting and fun to read how the game was played 100 years ago.......let me know if you want to know more.