First Rules for Basketball Sold for $4.3m at Auction
When James Naismith invented basketball in 1891, he had no idea that the game would one day be played around the world.
At the time, he was a physical education instructor at the YMCA in Springfield, Mass., U.S. He wanted to devise a game that would help students stay physically fit over the winter months. His idea for basketball came from a game he played as a child growing up in Canada, in a town called Almonte, which was just west of Ottawa. The game was called “Duck On a Rock” and required players to toss stones high into the air to knock another stone from a boulder that sat some distance away.
He replaced the stones with a ball and the boulder with a large fruit basket, and then came up with thirteen rules for the game. The rules were typed on two sheets of paper. The rules were sold by the Naismith family at auction for $4.3m dollars to basketball fans David and Suzanne Booth.
Annie Wood is a knowledge curator, content strategist, publisher, and writer based in Toronto, Canada. She was the publisher and creative director at the children’s book publishing company, Kids Can Press. Her book list included topics previously unexplored in Canada that helped to create a more inclusive literary culture for children.
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