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SPORTS
Eternal India
encyclopedia
and a pitching distance of 60 feet six inches for men and 54 feet six
inches for women.
The positions of the nine players of a fielding side are: pitcher,
catcher, I base, II base, III base, short stop, left fielder, centre
fielder and right fielder.
BASKETBALL
Though Dr. James Naismith, a physical educa-
tion instructor at the International Young Men’s
Christian Association Training School, Springfield,
Massachusetts, is credited with having discov-
ered modern basketball, the earliest evidence of a
game resembling basketball has been found in an-
cient Central and South American civilisations. In
the South American Yucatan peninsula, playing courts bounded by
stone walls and set among groves of trees have been found dating
back to the seventh century B.C. Overlooking the courts were
sculptures of gods and other religious symbols, suggesting that the
game normally took place as a part of a religious festival. The 01-
mecs of Mexico played a game called ‘Pok-ta-Pok’ with a rubber
ball filled with sacred plants. The object was to put the ball into the
goal using the hips, thighs and knees. In the 16th century Mexico,
the Aztec game of ‘Ollamalitzli’ required the players to propel a
solid rubber ball through a fixed stone ring.
The 11th century philosopher, Omar Khayam, made the first
literary allusion to basketball in one of his epigrams which may be
translated as: "You are a ball played with by fate;, a ball which God
throws since the dawn of time into the catch basket." An engraving
made by Brays in 1603 shows a precursor to basketball and Vieth in
his Encyclopedia of Athletics (1818) details a game played in
Florida in which players attempted to throw the ball into a basket
attached to the top of a pole.
Dr. James Naismith, however, created the modern version in
December 1891 as an indoor recreation during winter for young
people who showed little interest in the usual physical exercises of
the day. The game has since caught on and the YMCA has been in
the forefront spreading the game worldwide. The Federation Inter-
nationale de Basketball Amateurs (FIBA) was formed in 1936 and
following the demonstration of the sport in the Olympic Games in
1904 and 1928 by the Americans, it has been a regular feature of the
Olympic programme since 1936. Charles S.Patterson, an American
missionary worker employed with the YMCA , Calcutta made the
first attempt to introduce the game in India in 1905. But the credit
for popularising the game goes to the YMCA , Madras, which in the
1920s spread the game in schools, colleges and universities through
its instructors. Mostly played by members of private clubs, the
game also became popular in military units, and community and
recreation centres.
The first national championship for men was introduced in 1934
under the aegis of the Indian Olympic Association. It continued to.
be organised by the IOA till 1950 on a biennial basis. With the for-
mation of the Basketball Federation of India in February 1950 with
C.C. Abraham, Principal, YMCA College, Madras as the first
president and D.N. Rajanna as associate secretary, the onus of
conducting the national championship was shifted to the national
federation. The national championship for men then became an
annual affair. Though women’s basketball was introduced in the
country in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the first national champi-
onship for women was introduced in the 1952/53 season at Banga-
lore.
The Todd Memorial Trophy, the symbol of supremacy for the
national men’s championship was, in fact, donated by the Mysore
Basketball Association. The trophy for the women’s national
championship was donated by Prince Baslat Jha, the brother of the
Nizam of Hyderabad, who watched the first national for women
organised at the Central College ground in Bangalore.
Till 1956, the women’s event was not a regular feature of the
BFI’s calendar, but subsequently became an annual event. The
national junior championship for boys was introduced in 1955 and
the mini national championships for boys and girls in 1973. India’s
first international exposure was the participation in the first Asian
Games at New Delhi, in 1951. India’s first international win was in
the quadrangular (India, erstwhile Ceylon, Iran and Pakistan)
league tournament organised by the Pakistan Basketball Federa-
tion at Lahore in January 1962.
The BFI organised the first coaching camp by the American
coach Frank Kaufman at the National Stadium, New Delhi from 1st
October, 1955 under the aegis of the United States’ Information
Services. This was followed by another coaching camp by another
basketball expert, Sam Fox, at New Delhi, Trivandrum, Madras
and Calcutta. Though basketball was devised as an indoor game, it
has become a very popular outdoor sport in tropical countries like
India.
Some of the other national trophies are: C.C. Abraham Trophy
for junior boys, Mukherjee Trophy for league losers in the nation-
als, Traoib Shankaran Memorial Trophy for runners-up in the
senior nationals and the Kalinga Trophy for the best disciplined
team in the nationals. The BFI is affiliated to the Indian Olympic
Association, the Asian Basketball Confederation and the FIBA.
Arjuna Awards:
Sarabjit Singh, Khushi Ram, Gurdial Singh,
Abbas Moontasir, Manmohan Singh, Surinder Kumar Kataria, Anil
Kumar Punj, Hanuman Singh, Vijayaraghavan, Omprakash, Ajmer
Singh, Suman Sharma and Radhey Shyam.
BAAZIGAR OR INDIAN ACROBATICS
While gymnastics as a sophisticated form of
acrobatics has become an accepted norm, the
Whole world over,there is another kind of
acrobatics,very common in the Indian streets, by a
group
of untrained professionals (normally a small
family, which has been performing the road
show ancestrally with no formal training or
coaching), which can perhaps be termed "Indian Acrobatics".
These performers while entertaining crowds on the road side
also earn their livelihood from such shows. Some of the common
acts include tight rope walking (wherein a young female will walk
across barefoot on a stretch of thin rope fastened at two ends by
cross poles normally balancing a bamboo pole on her hands) and
balancing a young child on a huge pole, wherein the child reaches
the top of the pole, which is balanced by the male member either on
his stomach, chest or head.
Sometimes trained monkeys and other animals are included as
a part of the fare.