Sports.Baseball wasn’t so popular until 1840s and for many years was widely regarded as a game for the idle rich. The Civil War helped to democratize the game, as Union Army recruits took to baseball and taught it to fellow soldiers and to their captors in prison camps in the South. Soon after the war the first professional clubs were formed, and thereafter baseball occupied an unchallenged position as the Nation’s No. 1 sport until the late 1940s. The rules of the present game were made up by Alexander Joy Cartwright in 1845. It was no easy task, because different versions of the game were played in different states. When the first modern game of baseball was played in 1846 Alexander Joy Cartwright acted as the game’s umpire and once fined one of the players for swearing. The fine amounted to 6 cents. Football at the beginning of the 20th century was essentially a college game and even then was criticized for its brutality. Boxing developed slowly, hampered by legal bans and public disapproval. Golf and tennis were dismissed as recreations for wealthy. Eventually, all these sports attained great popularity. Bicycling became the rage in the 1890s, but interest diminished as the automobile appeared. After World War II there were great opportunities for the enjoyment of leisure. Shorter workweeks, higher pay and longer vacations encouraged travel and sightseeing. A growing interest in physical fitness sent people into the open air. They learned to play golf, tennis, handball and volleyball and others. When they were not out on the roads, beaches or playing fields, they crowded into baseball parks, football stadiums, basketball and hockey arenas, racetracks as spectators and millions sat before their TV sets to watch highly paid athletic superstars perform. Of all major sports played in the United States, the only purely inborn game is basketball. It was invented in 1891 by Canadian-born James Naismith, who taught physical education in Springfield, Massachusetts, at the International Training School (now Springfield College). Using a soccer ball and two peach baskets, he designed an indoor, no-contact sport to keep his students in form during the winter and to fill the winter gap between the football season in autumn and baseball in spring. By 1939 the rules of basketball was printed in as many as 30 languages, and the game was played in more than 75 countries. The game was also made an official part of Olympic competition in 1936, in Germany, when basketball teams from 22 countries participated. Check yourself 1. When did the American Colonies’ first newspaper appear? 2. Is there no national radio station in the United States? 3. Who invented basketball?
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