Basketball

James Naismith invented basketball in 1891. Naismith was a Canadian, but lived in the United States. He was a teacher at Springfield Training School in the state of Massachusetts. He taught sports and found there were no interesting games to play indoors in the winter months. So he thought of a game.

Naismith's students played the first game of basketball in the Springfield gym in 1891. There were nine men on each team. They used a soccer ball. They put peach baskets on the gym wall. The goal or purpose of the game was to throw the ball in the basket. That is why he called the game basketball. A man with a ladder went to the basket. He climbed the ladder and took the ball out of the basket. Luckily, only one man got the ball into the basket in the first game.

Basketball is a very fast game. Players must run up and down the basketball court or gym floor the whole game. At the same time they must control the ball. Today, most players are tall. Many of them are over seven feet tall and weigh more than 200 pounds. But one of basketball's great players was Barney Sedran. He played from 1912 to 1926 and is in the Basketball Hall of Fame. He was only 5 feet 4 inches tall and 118 pounds!

Today, basketball is an international sport. In America, the National Basketball Association (NBA) has some of the best players in the world. Basketball is also an Olympic sport today. In the Olympics, the best teams from many countries play to show they are the best.

Cheerleaders

When you go to a college or high school sports event, you see cheerleaders. Cheerleaders are male and female. They dress in the colors of their team. They jump and dance in front of the crowd and shout the name of their team. Their job is to excite the crowd. Everybody makes a lot of noise. They want their team to win the game.

The first cheerleader was a man. In 1898, Johnny Campbell jumped in front of the crowd at the University of Minnesota and shouted for his team. He shouted, "Hoo-rah Minn-e-so-tah!" This was the first organized shout, or "yell." For the next thirty-two years cheerleaders were men only. Women were not cheerleaders until 1930.

Today cheerleaders work in teams. They practice special shouts, dances, and athletic shows. Often the women work separately from the men. But cheerleaders are most exciting when men and women work together. The men threw the women high in the air and catch them. The team members climb on each other's shoulders to make a human pyramid. They yell and dance too. It is like human fireworks.

Cheerleaders now have their own contests. Every year there are local, state, and national contests for cheerleaders. The best teams make new, faster, and more exciting shows to be the best. And the crowd shouts. They want their cheerleaders to win.

Baseball

Baseball is America's most popular sport. In a baseball game there are two teams of nine players. Players must hit a ball with a bat and then run around four bases. A player who goes around all the bases scores a run for his team. The team that finishes with more runs wins the game.

Where did baseball come from? No one knows for sure. Many people believe that the idea came from a game played by children in England. Other people believe that a man named Abner Doubleday invented the game in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839. But the first real rules of baseball were written in 1845 by Alexander Cartwright. Two teams from New York played a game following Cartwright's rules. The rules worked well. Soon there were many teams.

These early teams were not professional. They played only for fun, not money. But baseball was very popular from the start. Businessmen thought that they could make money with professional baseball teams.

The first professional team was started in 1869. This team was the Red Stockings of Cincinnati. Within a few years there were professional teams in other cities. In 1876 these teams came together in a league, or group, called the National League. The teams in the National League played one another.

In 1901 a new league, called the American League, was formed. To create some excitement, in 1903 the two leagues decided to have their first-place teams play each other. This event was called the World Series.

Each year since then the National League winner and the American League winner play in the World Series. And, each year, millions of people look forward to this exciting sports event.

1. What images spring to mind when you hear the word ‘sport’?
2. Why do so many people like sport?
3. Why are some people not interested in sport?
4. How often do you read sports news?
5. Do you prefer playing or watching sports?
6. Do you have good or bad experiences with sports at school?
7. Do you think sports stars have the best life?