Interesting argument that all 4 of the major sports in North America have Canadian roots. Whether first played in Canada (hockey, football) or created by a Canadian (basketball)
Both hockey and football were first played in Montreal it seems. Football was passed on to the US via McGill university showing it to Harvard.
Basket ball was of course invented by Ontarian James Naismith who invented while working for a school in Springfield, Mass.
And finally baseball which many people say Abner Doubleday invented the game. Seems this is not true at all.
An interesting read.
http://www.cbc.ca/sportslongform/en...rican-football-baseball-basketball-and-hockey
Both hockey and football were first played in Montreal it seems. Football was passed on to the US via McGill university showing it to Harvard.
Basket ball was of course invented by Ontarian James Naismith who invented while working for a school in Springfield, Mass.
And finally baseball which many people say Abner Doubleday invented the game. Seems this is not true at all.
But the whole business of him dreaming up the game of baseball? That was just a marketing ploy, sponsored and encouraged by Mr. Spalding of sporting goods fame, who wanted everyone to believe that baseball was 100 per cent all-American (Doubleday was already a resident of Arlington Cemetery when the myth was invented).
....
It turns out that the earliest, detailed, reputable account of baseball being played in North America came out of a game in Beachville, Ont., which is in the Woodstock-London neck of the woods. The date of record is June 4, 1838. Teams from the neighbouring townships of Oxford and Zorra squared off. An eyewitness to the game wrote about it (admittedly, a few decades after the fact) in the pages of Sporting Life magazine.
....
Born in Muddy York on Valentine's Day 1858, Arthur Albert Irwin had an Irish dad and a Canadian mom. At 25 years old, playing shortstop for the Providence Grays, he broke two fingers. Rather than quit playing, the wily fielder proved he deserved his nickname when he got an oversized leather glove, added padding to it, stitched fingers three and four together and invented the fielder’s glove.
Two weeks later he signed an exclusive manufacturing deal, and it was not long thereafter that 90 per cent of big leaguers were wearing "Irwin Gloves.†Not content with that little earner, he also patented the modern baseball scoreboard and padded bases. And he pulled off the first known squeeze play.
An interesting read.
http://www.cbc.ca/sportslongform/en...rican-football-baseball-basketball-and-hockey
