Summary Of The Ball: Discovering The Object Of The Game By John Fox

In John Fox’s book, The Ball: Discovering the Object of the Game, his son Aiden brings up the question, “Why do we play ball?” This question inspired Fox significantly because instead of shrugging off the question or turning it into what he calls a “cozy aphorism” like most fathers would, he wanted to go deep into the question to provide his son a thorough and thoughtful explanation. He explores the origins of sports and games such as basketball, football, baseball, lacrosse, soccer, tennis, etc. how they have evolved across centuries to today, and why we love the games we play through the invention of the ball. Fox reveals that in all of its various forms of the ball, it plays such a vital role in different cultures all around the world. He

Fox believes he would give a good perspective to answering his son’s question through the historical aspect of certain sports, and he offers an insight to what sports and games are to us and why we love the games we play.

I decided to choose The Ball: Discovering the Object of the Game by John Fox in relation to sports and games because it caught my attention on how the invention of a ball greatly influences the lives of individuals all around the world. During my adolescent years, I have been around many different sizes and forms of a round object that looks like or is a ball, whether it is a hacky sack, balloon, basketball, beach ball, soccer ball, squishy ball, baseball, exercise ball, tennis ball, etc. These objects were toys for me to play with—to grab, to throw, to squish, to observe, to bounce, and eventually use them for games and sports. As I grew old enough, either being home and at school, I was always engaged in

Throughout history, Fox validates that rationalization and bureaucratic organization existed in football, basketball, and baseball. For instance, there was a bureaucratic organization in baseball called the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) who was responsible and had control for rationalization. Fox states that, “in 1858, the newly formed National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP), attempting to distance their manly sport from its boyish associations, voted to exclude any members under the age of 21” (202). In football, “by 1891, Canadians had formed the Canadian Football Union, essentially taking up American football with a few different rules.” (231). Fox also indicates that there was the “Intercollegiate Football Association (IFA), the governing body of college football, submitting proposals for major changes in the game’s rules.” (242). Lastly, some of the examples of the bureaucratic organizations of basketball that he mentioned were the WNBA, NBA, and the ABL. Another modern characteristic presented was the equality of sports today. It seems that the equality in sports is not fully evident. This appears in the book when Fox interviews a highly skilled female basketball player, Bilquis Abdul-Oaadir, sharing her struggles of being a Muslim basketball player in high school. He justifies that, “there was still the social