BALL. A rounded body, hollow or solid, preferably with a smooth surface, sometimes indented with an even pattern. (Mid. Eng. bal. Cf. bale, of Teutonic origin. Lat. follis. Gr. iraXXa).
Sometimes applied to such rounded protuberances as the root of the thumb and big toe, or as the "ball" joint of a bone fitting into the "socket" of another bone.
Also used (from late Lat. ballare, whence "ballad" and "ballet," or from Fr. bal) to mean a large gathering of people invited to join in dancing.
The ball (in its strict sense) has probably contributed more than anything else to the pleasures, pastimes, and sports of mankind, in length of time or in enjoyment. The rounded pebbles of the shore, the shapes of fruit and seeds, may each in turn have pro vided the prehistoric child with his primaeval rolling plaything, as it gave the palaeolithic warrior the missile for his hand or sling or throwing-stick. The ball is mentioned in the earliest literatures we know. Though the Hebrews were the least athletic of races, Isaiah must have been sure of his simile being understood when he wrote : "He will surely turn and toss thee like a ball" ; and some form of ball-game is portrayed on early Egyptian monuments, as it is to-day enjoyed by primitive barbarous tribes. Homer was appealing to a sympathetic audience when he described how the Princess Nausicaa and her maidens "fell to playing at ball" in Scheria (which is Corfu), that far-off land of the Phaeacians washed by the utmost tides of ocean (Od. vi. Ioo) ; and again, when the wanderer reaches her father's palace, we hear how Halios and Laodamas played a ball-game, accompanied with dancing, before Alcinous and Odysseus (Od. vii. 37o).
When we reach "historic" times, we find the Greeks keeping their bodies supple for sterner contests by ball-play (o4aipaL) ; and in the Roman baths an apartment called Sphaeristerium was set apart for similar exercises. There are traces in later Greek authorities of ball-games not yet organized, but fully appreciated, in such words as airoppa ts, which means patting the ball on the ground from the open hand ; ovpavia, flinging the ball skywards to be caught again ; Oaevivha, an odd expression which seems to indi cate the skill of making a feint when the ball was thrown by one player to be caught by another; or an obscure name which suggests, if lines of players were engaged, some vague origins of football, though we hear nothing of any goals. It is curious that these words, and others, seem usually to retain, even in Roman times, their Greek origin; as in the harpastum, which may be an ancient prototype of the "scrimmage" in rugby foot ball; or the trigon, in which three players stood in a triangle and struck the ball from one to the other with a kind of gauntlet on the arm, as may still be seen in Italy. This was a notable advance, and the leather ball used, filled with air, was called follis, a larger type than the pi/a, used in games of catch with the hand only, and different from the paganica, a heavy ball stuffed with feathers after the type of Scotland's ancient golf balls.
These early games seem to us naturally to be rather undefined, and it was only when skill was developed along certain lines with the ball alone, and in a more valuable direction by the use of va rious implements for striking it, that we reach the specialization resulting in our modern multiplicity. The picture given with this article shows how many differences from the simple type have now arisen. Only one of the "balls" in constant use to-day is not round, and that is used for rugby and American football ; which is strange for the free use of a ball by hands and feet (with no additional implement) must have been one of the earliest developments in ball-games. Association football, however, has rejected primitive simplicities by the introduction of forbidding the use (or even the touch) of the hands. When the ball is made so much heavier for its size that it only leaves the ground with difficulty—as in bowls— the reverse restriction appears, and feet are not allowed. Directly an implement is added, the ball decreases in size : for hockey and cricket the ball is 51oz. and 9,1-in. round ; the polo-ball of light wil low has a diameter of 31-in.; lacrosse has a ball only 2 4in. in di ameter, lighter still. The accuracy of the balls so far- mentioned bears a certain relation to the area of play as well as to the fact that only one ball is used. But directly the area is restricted and more than one ball is used by the same player to make his score, very much greater accuracy is necessary ; and the fact that a billiard-cue strikes its ball with the smallest surface of any imple ment employed in ball games necessitates exact measurements, greater comparative weight, and delicate manufacture. The ivory billiard-ball, with a diameter of 2Ain. weighs 43. ounces.
The player's use of a ball with an implement is very much com plicated when another player, similarly equipped, tries to use the same ball for different purposes. Hence came the rich family of games which is distinguished by different forms of the racket, such as real tennis, lawn tennis, rackets, pelota, or squash rackets. The primitive rounders was perhaps the first ball-game in which one player tried, with the ball, to defeat another player who had the implement. Hence descended the American baseball and the Eng lish cricket.