Calvinball

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2011/05/calvinball.html

by Steve Sailer

The history of most sports is quite woozy before the 19th Century. It's 
obvious, such as from 17th Century Dutch paintings of daily life, that 
males played a lot of sports, but most of the rules we are familiar with 
go back to English-speakers of the 19th Century, or a little earlier. (The 
oldest evidence of the rules of golf being written down, for example, are 
from Edinburgh in 1744.)

What were sports like before the Victorian institutionalization?

My guess from watching little boys play, is that they had traditional 
rules that varied across time and place, with lots of Calvinball 
improvisations, followed by lots of arguments over whether that was fair 
or not. For example, legend has it that in 1823 at Rugby School, schoolboy 
William Webb Ellis picked up the ball and ran toward the goal, breaking 
traditional rules and inventing rugby.

Maybe that story is not exactly true, but it's likely that countless 
incidents like that have happened over the thousands of years -- somebody 
would do something new, then everybody would argue over it, and it would 
either become precedent or disallowed. But, then after awhile, something 
else would happen, and the rules would change some more, endlessly.

But there was a new spirit abroad in the English-speaking world over the 
last couple of hundred years or so that said rules should be standardized.

The coming of the railroad encouraged sportsmen to compete more around the 
country, which led to conflicts between local traditions. The railway also 
allowed older sportsmen to get together and standardize rules. The history 
of the evolution of American football in the 19th Century, for example, is 
largely a history of guys getting together in hotels next to train 
stations during the off season to argue about rules changes.

In contrast, little girls tend to change the rules to make people feel 
less bad.

How many sports have women invented? I looked up rhythmic gymnastics, and 
most of the names cited in the history section were men, but the first 
person cited in America was Catharine Beecher (of the exhaustingly 
energetic Beechers -- Harriet Beecher Stowe was her sister).

The institutionalization of sports is a major human accomplishment. But 
are standardized rules for sports good in the long run, or is it better 
for young males to get more experience making up, debating, and agreeing 
upon their own rules ad hoc?

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