History of Cricket

              Cricket goes back as far as the 1300s and it was known as “creag.” The modern cricket played today was played in the late 1500s in England. It became popular in England and it was the national sport of the country. The first official set of rules for cricket know as the “Laws of Cricket” was developed by the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). The club still exist today and they ensure the laws are being followed.. When cricket first began, the bat was not straight. The bat was bent like a hockey stick and then later changed. They change the form of the bat because the bowlers started putting curve on the ball and by making the straight bat they will be able to hit the ball.

Australia, India, North America, South Africa, New Zealand and the Caribbean were among the first to participate in the sport. Cricket began to spread throughout the Commonwealth in the 1800s and the first international cricket match occurred in 1844 between the United States and Canada. The match between teams in cricket are known to be Test matches. They consists of a series of cricket matches over 5 days. At the end of the 5 days if there is no winner then the test match is a draw.

        Not all countries are eligible for Test matches. Currently the only countries with Test status are Australia, England, South Africa, New Zealand, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, the West Indies and Sri Lanka. Zimbabwe's Test status is currently suspended because its team became uncompetitive.
Cricket is the second most popular sport in the world, behind soccer and its played in more than 100 countries worldwide.

History of Golf

            Golf was established in Great Britain by the 17th century. In the 1800s the feather filled ball was replaced for the modern ball used today. In 1860 the first golf tournament was open and was called the  British Open. The first golf club in North America, was the  Canada’s Royal Montreal Club that was founded in 1873. The United States Golf Association (USGA) was founded in 1894 and from then on was the governing body of the sport. Another association that was established in 1916 was named The Professional Golf Association (PGA) that made all the decision about tournament at a professional level.

  The Professional Golf Association decided to create a tournament were professional and amateurs were allowed to play. The reason for this is to give the amateur a full out experience of how it is in a professional level. It was an Open tournament were anyone could compete in the event. Some examples of a Open tournament are the US Open and the British Open. In the 1920s the sport started to impress many people and from then on it started to gain its popularity.

                                                     If you want to know more about the History of Golf click links below:

http://www.tourcanada.com/golfhist.htm
http://www.essortment.com/all/golfhistorygo_rmof.htm
http://ezinearticles.com/?Origin-of-Golf&id=1494021
http://golf.about.com/od/historyofgolf/Golf_History.htm

History of Tennis

         Tennis is one of the oldest competitive sports. Tennis originated  in the late 19th Century in the United Kingdom. Rules of the game were confirmed by the year 1890 and hasn’t change much. The sport rapidly gained popularity because it was really simple, just needed a rackets and a ball, even older people were playing the game. The first players recorded in a tennis match were Augurio Perea and Harry Gem in the mid-19th century. The two players created the first tournament in Shrubland Hall and then found the Worlds First Tennis Club in 1872.

         The four main tournaments in Tennis are the Australian Open, the French Open, the Wimbledon and the US Open and are known as Grand Slam tournaments. The US Open is now called US National Men’s Singles Champion took place in Newport, Rhode Island. The first Wimbledon championships were played in London and started spreading around the world from there on. The United States Tennis Association was established on May 21, 1881 and had strong foundation for tennis to become a popular sport.

           Like other sports tennis also has had great players. Rod Laver is considered the best male tennis player of all time. Laver won all four grand slams in a single year twice and was undefeated for quite some time. Another great tennis player that is still playing today is Roger Federer ranked number several times. The other player is Rafael Nadal that has taken Federer spot once in 2008 and is making Roger Feferer life miserable because Rafael wants to be number one and be the greatest player in the World.


If you want to know more about the History of tennis click the links below:
http://tennis.about.com/od/history/a/earlyhistory.htm
http://www.athleticscholarships.net/history-of-tennis.htm
http://www.e-tennis.org/infohistoryoftennis.html

History of Volleyball

Volleyball was created by William G Morgan, a YMCA director in Massachusetts, in 1895 and its was originally known as Mintonette. William took ideas from other sports like football and basketball. He wanted a sport with less contact because the older people at YMCA wanted to play a sport that required less energy to play but still makes them physically active. Alfred Halstead thought “Mintonette” wasn’t a catchy name for the sport and on 1896 at an exhibition game he described the players volleying the ball back and forth. YMCA directors came up with “Volley ball” with a space in between but then slowly became one word.


The Athletic League of YMCA published the first official rules of Volleyball in 1897 and a few years later designed a new ball made for the game. The National Collegiate Athletic Association joined with the YMCA in 1916 and both refined the fundamental rules. The rules were changed again in 1920 and were played at a college level. Volleyball started spreading all over the world and one main factor was because of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF.) The AEF sent about 16500 volleyballs to troops and allies all over the world and that helped Volleyball to be a global sport.

The first national men’s tournament was in 1928 and that caused the YMCA and NCAA to establish the first volleyball organization, the United States Volleyball Association (USVBA). After that Volleyball became one of the popular sports in history.

If you want to know more about the History of Volleyball click links below:

http://www.athleticscholarships.net/history-of-volleyball.htm
http://www.volleyball.org/history.html
http://lifestyle.iloveindia.com/lounge/history-of-volleyball-2353.html

History of Hockey

              Hockey was played in Egypt, Europe and Asia hundreds years ago but it was not the modern hockey game played today. The modern game played today began in England where a University started creating rules of the game in 1860. After the University created the fundamental rules they established the first Hockey Association in 1875.

The game started to become popular when the universities created a Championship played among everyone which was very exciting. The World Championship was on 1883 and from then on, more and more countries started playing. At first the players did not have any safety equipment but then as technology advanced they started wearing safety equipment that protected the players to suffer less injuries. After that some representatives had meetings and established the first international association called the International Hockey Federation in 1809.

The committee that ran the Olympics decided to add Hockey to the games played and this made Hockey increase its popularity(1924.) A lot of leagues were being established during this time but the one that remained and the most popular is the league we know today. The National Hockey League (NHL) that was formed in 1917 and consists or 24 Americans team and 6 Canadian teams.






If you want more information about the history of hockey click link below:

http://www.nhl.com/ice/page.htm?id=26838
http://hockeytribute.com/who-invented-hockey.shtml
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/who-invented-hockey.html

History of Baseball

           Baseball was played in many countries and there’s really no evidence of who and when baseball was created. Some people say Abner Doubleday invented baseball but there is no evidence of him actually creating the game. There were similar games played so its said Baseball developed from the similar games in each country. For example a similar game was played in Romania in 1364 and it was called Oina. Onia was played with a bat and a hard small ball just like baseball but with different set of rules. The Russians played another similar game of baseball and it was known as Lapta. Lapta was played with just a batter and a pitcher, making the batters goal to run back and forth to score as much points as possible.

In 1845, Alexander Cartwright created the fundamental rules of the baseball played today. The first game recorded in history was on  June 19, 1846, it was between the New York Nine team and the Knickerbockers, the final score was 23-1 in favor of the New York team. Since baseball didn’t have a creator at the time they decided to make Alexander Cartwright as the inventor of baseball and was recorded in 1953. The number of baseball teams during the early 1960s in America dropped and caused a decrease in its popularity.

              Baseball spread all over the world because of the Civil War because the soldiers played the sport for fun making it interesting to other parts of the world. By the late 1960s, Baseball had became a daily played sport by everyone and it became a popular sport . The first professional baseball league was established in 1871 and called the National Association of Professional Baseball Players. The first league established outside United States was in Cuba in 1878. The Cubans were a very strong international team and now are very well-known by everyone.

If you want to read more about the history of baseball click the links below:

http://www.rpi.edu/~fiscap/history_files/history1.htm
http://www.athleticscholarships.net/history-of-baseball.htm
http://answers.yourdictionary.com/sports/who-invented-baseball.html

History of Basketball

   In December 1891, a popular sport was invented by a James Naismith a physical education instructor. James Naismith invented Basketball when he was an instructor at the Young Men's Christian Association Training School in Massachusetts. Dr. Luther H Gulick a phys-ed specialist asked James to create a indoor sport that allow players to play indoor when the conditions were bad outside. James Naismith started taking ideas from other sports like football, soccer, and hockey and created the beautiful sport. The funny thing about basketball is that they didn’t have a ball designed for the game and instead used a soccer ball.

At the beginning James decided to allow 9 players to play in a game and created 13 fundamental rules of the game for every one to follow. In 1897, James decided to change the number of players from 9 to 5, which is the standard players allowed to play in modern basketball. The reason why James decided to lower the number of players was because he wanted the game to be fast and wanted to see lots of points in the scoreboard. That made Basketball very entertaining at the moment and later on turned into a fabulous sport.  The game spread all over the world and many countries starter playing the beautiful game. Basketball became a major college sport in the early 1950s, and took one step forward in playing in a professional level.

The National Basketball League was the first professional league and was formed in 1898. It was establish to protect the safety of the player because the game increased its intensity. One of the first professional teams that dominated the game was the original Celtics. The National Basketball League and the Basketball Association of America joined and created what is now known as the National Basketball Association (NBA).

History of football

                    Football originated in the early 1800's in England from a sport called rugby. Rugby was a popular sport that eventually spread all over the world.  It was first played in the United States  in 1869 and in a couple of years it took its modern form.  Football history had constant rule changes to increase the protection of player and to boost the excitement of the game.

           Representatives from multiple universities met in New York City to decide the fundamental rules for college football teams to follow.  The teams then established the Intercollegiate Football Association (IFA). The Association, led by Walter Camp, decided that 15 would be the number of players in a game. Walter Camp was the coach at Yale University and later wanted to change the number of players to 11 to make it more interesting.  The Intercollegiate Football Association changed the numbers of players to 11 and that helped the transformation from rugby to the modern game of American football.

            The number of players from 15 to 11 caused to make the standard playing field decrease to 110 yards.  In 1882, West Camp introduced the system of downs.  The system of downs allowed the attacking team three attempts to advance the ball 5 yards.  Many players made it seem to easy to advance the ball 5 yards, so the committee changed the distance to 10 yards, in 1906.  In about six years later the association added the fourth down making a long game.

History of soccer

             The origin of soccer goes back as far as 3000 years. The earliest form of soccer was played in China by the military to increase there performance in battle . Another early form of soccer “Tiachi” was performed in South and Central America.  Soccer began to take shape in its modern form in England.  The first football association was established in England in 1863, when rugby and football split up forming their own associations. Soccer in other parts of the world is referred as Football.

             The Football association had to have fundamental rules of the game for every team to follow the same rules.  Therefore in October 1863, soccer representatives had a meeting to set up the fundamental rules of the game. In December 1863, rugby and football finally came apart when in the football rules it was forbidden any handling of the ball.  Eight years after its establishment, The Football association had 50 member clubs.

             The first football competition in the world started in 1863 and was named the FA cup.  International games were performed in Great Britain and the first was in 1872 (England vs. Scotland).  Although soccer at that time wasn’t played in professional level, a club in England started to pay there players to beat a supposedly invincible team named Old Estonians in the FA cup. The first players that received money for their talent were two Darwin players, John Love and Fergus Suter.  The Football association had to legalize professionalism in 1885 because many players were being paid for playing.