BASKET BALL. A game that may be played on any ground or floor on which an oblong space not exceeding 3500 square feet can be marked. The goals, at each end of the floor or field, are hammock nets of cord, suspended from metal rings 18 inches in diam eter at a height of 10 feet. The ball is a round, inflated bladder, covered with leather, from 30 to 32 inches in circumference, and weighing from IS to 20 ounces. The game is played in halves of '20 min utes,between teams of 5 players each (a left and a right guard, a centre,and a left and a right forward). The ball is put in play by being thrown by the referee into the centre of the field at right angles from the side lines and to a greater height than either of the centres can jump, whereupon each team endeavors to throw the ball into the basket of the other, and to prevent its opponents from making a similar goal. The ball must be thrown or batted with the hands. It may not be kicked, punched, or carried. A player may not tackle, hold, push. shoulder, kick, or hack an opponent, and intentional roughness will disqualify. The penalty for these and other offenses gives the opposing team a free throw for the basket from a distance of not less than 15 feet. A goal so made
counts one point; an ordinary goal from the field, three points.
The game is regulated by the Amateur Athletic Union, which has drawn up the official rules for its practice. It enjoys the unique distinction of having been invented by a single brain at one sitting. In 1891 a lecturer on psychology in the training-school of the Young Men's Christian _Association at Plainfield. Mass., speaking of the mental processes of invention, proposed the example of a game with its limitations and necessities. The same night, .Tames Naismith, member of the class, worked out basket ball as an ideal game to meet the hypothetical ease; and the next day in the leeture-room it was put in practice with the aid of the members of the g3-m nastic class. Thence it spread to other branches of the Young Men's Christian Association, and in two or three years to other athletic clubs and to the general public.