The Ball (32 page)

Seeing he was absorbed in our sports conversation, I seized the chance to ask him what games the Huaorani played. I knew several Amazonian tribes had once played games with rubber balls. The Otomac, for instance, played a game where the men used their shoulders and the women used wooden bats to knock a rubber ball back and forth in a court. According to an 18th-century missionary, the women struck the ball so hard at the men that their poor spouses' backs were being repeatedly injured, “which these hens celebrate with laughter.” The Chiquito of eastern Bolivia played a Ba'-like game with one half of the village pitted against the other as they knocked a small rubber ball back and forth using only their heads. Each point was awarded a corn cob and the winning side earned the right to get drunk on
chicha
, an alcoholic beverage, while the other side watched.

Dogaka said that as far as he knew the Huaorani had no such games, though they did sometimes make rough balls from tapped rubber and kick them around. Other favorite games, he said, were arrow-shooting contests and rolling a termite mound down a hill while racing it to the bottom.

“But none of them compares to football!” he declared, smiling through missing teeth.

Soccer had been introduced to Huaorani communities years ago and had become instantly popular. In 2001, controversy was stirred up when one recently contacted group of Huaorani granted an Italian oil company rights to build an oil well and pipeline through their lands in exchange for a trifle of goods, including 50 kg of rice, 50 kg of sugar, two blocks of fat, a sack of salt, 15 plates and cups, $200 worth of medicine—and two soccer balls. A local environmental group decried the raw deal as “an insult to the collective rights of this indigenous nationality,” which it surely was, not to mention exploitative and sleazy.

But without belittling the deal's impact on both people and environment, it was also profoundly telling that two soccer balls, of all things, were the only nonessential commodities the Indians requested. And who could blame them? If I'd been making do with termite mounds and was suddenly turned on to the wonders of the modern ball, I'd dig deep to get my hands on a couple.

Probing further, I asked Dogaka what it was about football that he and other Huaorani loved so much. He paused, self-conscious of suddenly being the focus of attention. Then he earnestly explained, dodging and moving his feet in a dribble motion, how it feels to kick the ball as hard as you can across an open field, and to run fast and stay balanced while nestling the ball safely between your feet. How it's just as fun to juggle the ball, bounce it off your head or kick it back and forth with a friend. We all listened, riveted, as though hearing of this thing called soccer for the very first time. And in a way, that's how it felt.

“It's kind of like a monkey hunt,” he concluded with a flourish, eliciting laughter from the group.

“Come on, Dogaka, a soccer ball is
way
more forgiving on the chase than a monkey,” I argued.

He ceded the point.

Aidan sat at the other end of the table, taking it all in, wondering no doubt if we'd all lost our minds listening to an Amazonian tribesman wax on about the finer points of a game he played every weekend back home.

Then he broke the silence, “We should have brought a ball with us.”

I was about to suggest we go throw some rocks when Dogaka stepped in to rescue the moment.

“Want to learn how to climb a tree?” he asked.

Aidan leapt up and ran off with him, the rest of us in close pursuit, all heading into the forest to find a good climbing tree. There wasn't any point to it, no monkeys to hunt or fruit to pick up top. A waste of good energy really, and kind of dangerous too. It would do just fine. It would be fun.

Acknowledgments

I
f book writing were a sport, it would be most like baseball: a team effort that nevertheless comes down to you alone at the plate facing either humiliation or victory. In thanking my own team, I must first turn to my agent, Robert Guinsler, who saw something in me and my idea when it landed on his desk at Sterling Lord and took the first leap. In the long journey from raw idea to crafted form, I was fortunate to have the enthusiasm and insight of a tag team of editors at Harper Perennial. George Quraishi opened the door to HP and helped launch the effort before leaving and delivering me into the expert hands of Barry Harbaugh. Barry immediately saw what I was trying to accomplish, and his calm guidance helped bring out the best in the book and in me as a writer.

The research for this book was far too much fun to call research. It was exploration of the rambling, pre-GPS kind where a few tips, a hunch, or a reckless whim can lead to great discoveries and stories. I drew inspiration and learned so much from the athletes and aficionados I met along the way, individuals whose love of their games is infectious, especially Graeme King, Bobby Leslie, Matty Ronaldson, Chuy Páez, Freeman Bucktooth, Alfie Jacques, Jeremy Thompson, Jeff Turner, Brian Sheehy, and Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir. They welcomed me into their lives and onto their playing fields and shared their time and knowledge so generously. This book would have been plodding history were it not for the life they breathed into it.

Wrapping their stories in historical and scientific context meant standing on the shoulders of many great historians, anthropologists, and scientists. Most I encountered only through scholarly works liberated from the remarkably complete stacks of Harvard University's libraries. Others I had the good fortune to lean upon directly for their wisdom and expertise, including Stan Kuczaj, Allan Guttmann, Wolfgang Decker, John Robertson, James Brady, Sergio Garza, Manuel Aguilar, Lawrence McCray, Mark Bekoff, Tom Quesenberry, Jeff Monseau, Harry Rock, and Yves Carlier.

Every writer needs sanctuaries where he can retreat from the demands of daily life. Writing this book while working full-time and attempting to be a halfway decent husband and father made it not only helpful but essential to get away. I am deeply indebted to Preston Browning and his late wife, Ann, of Wellspring House for opening their home to me and to other writers and artists. Many ideas were unlocked and blocks unblocked there in Ashfield. When I was at the deadly midpoint of my project, my glass half empty and the end nowhere in sight, the MacDowell Colony rescued me with a fellowship that reenergized my work and made me feel that what I was doing might actually matter. In subsequent moments of doubt, I needed only to conjure the lunch basket deposited daily on my studio porch to feel restored. I am so grateful for that experience and for the extraordinary people I met there.

At every step I received moral support and sound advice from many good friends, family members, and fellow writers, including James Bernard, Nick Buettner, Dan Buettner, Dan Finamore, Val Fox, Lawrence Kessenich, Jen Krier, Bill Landay, Toby Lester, all the Logans, David McLain, Stephanie Pearson, Bernadette Rivero, Bill Shutkin, Emily Sohn, Amy and Scott Sutherland, and Jerome Thelia. I also owe thanks to my fellow “athenistas”—especially Pierre Valette and Rob Cosinuke—who have shown understanding and support for my double life.

To my mother, Mary Fox, I attribute the hard-working Irish scrappiness that got me through the toughest points. She not only taught me how to play tennis but how to play to win. I owe thanks and many drinks to my brother and fellow writer, Joe Fox, for being there as a friend and sounding board whenever I needed it and for making our wintry Scottish sojourn so memorable.

My kids are my greatest source of joy, and that joy infuses every page of this book. Aidan unwittingly launched my journey with his insatiable curiosity and love of all things sport-related. Amelia cheered me on throughout and kept me company on my dolphin visit. We had such fun, as we always do on our adventures together. My hope is that they'll read this book and be inspired to find wonder in simple things and unexpected places.

Finally, I offer my deepest gratitude and love to my wife, Steph, who told me I could do this when I was almost sure I couldn't, who said it was going to be amazing when I was thinking it might just be okay, and who unselfishly shouldered so many extra duties so I could achieve this goal. You made this—like so many good things—possible.

P. S.
Insights, Interviews & More . . .

About the author

Meet John Fox

J
OHN
F
OX WAS BORN AND RAISED
in the Inwood section of New York City. The apartment building where he grew up was built on the site of a 500-year old Lenape Indian village. Seventy years before he was born, when the rolling farmland of Manhattan's northern shores first gave way to paved streets on a grid, ceremonially interred dog carcasses had been uncovered on his corner, just a few paces from where home base was traced in chalk for neighborhood stickball games.

When he wasn't playing sports, John could often be found with a pack of friends exploring the Indian rock shelters tucked just above the Gaelic football field in Inwood Hill Park. The occasional pottery shard or arrowhead fragment lay just beneath the artifacts left by partying teens: mostly beer bottles and cigarette butts.

John left for college in Boston, where he received a B.A. in archaeology from Boston University. As an undergrad, he did fieldwork at a Roman village in the south of England, a 5,000-year-old cave in New Mexico, and a 19th-century millhouse in Massachusetts. Hooked on the past, he went on to pursue his Ph.D. in anthropology at Harvard University, where he specialized in the ancient Maya civilization. Over multiple seasons, he conducted field research in the wilds of Honduras, excavating ancient ball courts in an attempt to better understand the meaning and symbolism of the rubber ball game of
ulama
played by the Maya and neighboring civilizations. His articles interpreting this game were published in peer-reviewed journals and remain required reading for students of the subject.

After receiving his Ph.D. and teaching at both of his alma maters, John left academia to join a groundbreaking online adventure learning program called the Quests. From 1998 to 2003, he co-led a team of explorers, biologists, photographers, videographers, and multimedia artists on 10 educational expeditions across six continents. An online audience of about a million students and teachers, in 120 countries, logged on daily to set the course of the expedition.

Traveling by bicycle, canoe, and the occasional camel, he and his team explored some of the world's most extraordinary places along with some of its greatest historical and scientific mysteries—human origins in the Rift Valley, the collapse of the ancient Maya civilization, Marco Polo's fabled route across China, and the threatened tribes and wildlife of the Amazon rainforest, to name just a few.

The Quests won multiple educational awards and were cited by a congressional committee led by Senator John Glenn as a premier example of quality online learning. John appeared live on
Good Morning America
with Diane Sawyer from the top of a Maya temple. His field reports, many of which were syndicated at the time on CNN.com, were published in 2008 in his collection,
Around the World with a Million Kids: Adventures of an Online Explorer
.

He has written articles for
Outside
,
Smithsonian
,
Salon
, and other publications, and has been a regular commentator on sports and culture for Vermont Public Radio. In 2010, John was awarded a fellowship to the MacDowell Colony.

John lives just outside Boston with his wife, Stephanie; their children, Amelia and Aidan; and their half retriever, Eliot, who only half retrieves balls.

About the book

A Conversation with John Fox

 

What made you decide to focus the book on the ball?

 

Aside from the fact that the ball is the most fascinating and least written about object ever invented? Well, my research on the ancient Maya ball game really got me hooked on the cultural dimensions of sport and play—this area of human behavior that, on the one hand, is totally frivolous and, on the other, is an essential part of the human experience. Looking at the Maya, it seemed crazy that a rubber ball game, of all things, could have been so important over thousands of years—important enough for it to be part of their genesis story and written about by kings. But then I thought of our present civilization, and it struck me that, really, it's the same story a thousand years later in a completely different place and culture. And at the center of it all is the ball.

As I write in the prologue, it was my son's innocent question that really sparked in me the desire to write this book. I knew then that I needed to go out and explore his question, firsthand, with the same playful spirit of curiosity and wonder in which it was asked. As an archaeologist by training, it made sense to me to focus on the
thing
at the center of it all, the object of play. When you're excavating an ancient site, the artifacts and other physical remains you uncover are often all that's left, and it's your job to piece them together until they tell a story about the past. Once I dug into the topic, however, I realized there was actually a treasure trove of history just waiting to be uncovered.

 

Having traveled the world in order to examine mankind's elemental attraction to the ball, did you return home with a favorite ball game?

 

Well, I came home with the same favorite game I left with: basketball. One of the things I learned in my research and travels is that sports work on us on many deep levels—from the neurological to the patriotic to the nostalgic. So a favorite ballgame is a personal thing, and I bet if you ask anyone that question you'll learn a lot about them from the answer. For me, it's basketball. It was the sport I played the most as a kid, so it still reminds me of hot summer days hanging out with my friends at my neighborhood park in New York City. Now it's my son's favorite game, so naturally his newfound passion for it has rekindled my own—there's a generational connection there.

One of the things I love about basketball is its simplicity: a round bouncing ball, a hoop to throw it in. That's all you need to play. I love that it's a team sport and a passing game, but it also has that element of flash and individual style, showmanship and buzzer-beating heroics. Studying the history of basketball's invention and spread only deepened my appreciation for the game. As the most recent major ball game to appear, and the only one invented wholesale, it drew from every game that came before it. Naismith and Gulick really put a lot of thought and craft into shaping the game and making it accessible and universal. It's no surprise that, unlike the other big American sports—football and baseball—basketball has in record time become a truly global game.

 

How did you choose which sports—and which balls—to write about?

 

Even though there's a lot of history in this book, it was never my goal to write a global history of sports or ball games. That's a much bigger and very different undertaking than what I set out to do. First and foremost, I wanted to explore the question of why we play the games we play today, to get to the heart of those games and examine their roots. To do that, I knew I needed to look at the evolution of balls and ball play through time and provide the broadest view possible. So I chose sports that I felt best defined and reflected particular moments in history and at the same time revealed universal aspects of play.

Take tennis, for example. In a sense, tennis reached its peak of cultural relevance around the year 1600 and lost steam after that. It was
the
sport of the Renaissance and really elevated sport to a new level of importance in European society. You can see that just in the number of references to tennis that appear in Shakespeare's writings and other literature of the age. On a more universal level, the story of tennis reflects the way the games we play can signal our position in society. Tennis was branded an elite sport early on and, despite efforts to rebrand it, has never been embraced, like soccer, as a sport of the people.

Similarly,
ulama
exposes the symbolic and religious dimension of sport—that in ancient times, and to some extent still today, games were ceremonial rites. The
ulama
and lacrosse stories remind us that the ball was not invented in one place and spread from there but rather was invented in parallel by many different civilizations. I love the image of tennis-playing Frenchmen arriving in the wilds of North America to encounter Indians playing their own game with a racket and ball— lacrosse! The story of baseball gets at the link between sports and national identity, while American football offers a window into the role of violence in sports. And so on.

 

Aside from
ulama
, did you come across other games—even ones that didn't make it into the book—that are on the brink of extinction?

 

Yes, I came across several traditions in Mexico alone in fact. At the time of the Spanish conquest,
ulama
was just one of hundreds of ball games being played by indigenous groups there. Some of them died off or were killed off early, but quite a few still hang on. One of the most unusual,
pelota purépecha
, is still played by around 800 people in the state of Michoacán. Two teams armed with oak sticks attempt to score goals with a ball made of twine and cotton rags that's been doused in fuel and lit on fire. I've seen it described as a kind of field hockey for pyromaniacs! They often play at night, and all you can see is this blazing orb streaking across the night sky. So cool.

Another pre-Columbian game,
pelota mixteca
, is a kind of handball played in Oaxaca with a small rubber ball covered with a suede lining. Players in teams of five pound the solid ball back and forth with an elaborately decorated 10-pound leather glove. Although the number of players has dwindled over time, the game is still played in Mexico as well as by immigrants in U.S. communities such as Fresno, Fort Worth, and East Los Angeles.

What's great is that the Mexican Sports Federation has actually focused a lot of attention and money recently on preserving these games. They're building a pre-Hispanic sports center in Mexico City, printing rule books for ancient games, and offering seminars in schools to try to get young people interested. The jury's still out on whether they'll be successful, but most kids I know would leap at the chance to play hockey with a flaming ball!

 

The ancient ball games you write about, and even games like
ulama
that are still played, are heavy in symbolism. Do our contemporary ball games—baseball, basketball, and American football (all of which you address)—reflect any latent cultural symbolism that some anthropologist hundreds of years from now might be interested in?

 

Certainly in our secular age sports no longer have the overt religious symbolism and ceremony of earlier times. We don't tend to offer sacrifices before or after important games, for example, or regard the outcome of a game as determining future weather patterns or harvests. But there's still a lot of symbolism wrapped up in our modern games. Baseball, for example, is steeped in superstition. There's the Curse of the Bambino, of course, which I'm almost certain is back with a vengeance after the Red Sox's inexplicable and catastrophic collapse at the end of the 2011 season. Also, batters and pitchers have any number of bizarre rites they perform on the plate or mound to ensure success, such as tugging sleeves, clapping hands, tapping bats on the ground a set number of times. Lots of players won't step on the foul lines coming on or off the field. Some players, reinforcing an ancient male superstition, will even abstain from sex on game days.

One of my favorite stories is of the construction worker who in 2008, hoping to curse the Yankees for years to come, buried a David Ortiz shirt under the new Yankees Stadium as it was being built. When the Yankees got a tip about it, they brought in a crew to jackhammer through three feet of concrete and the Yankees president presided over what he called an “excavation ceremony” to remove the shirt and any black magic it might have unleashed. The story reminds me of the Aztec who buried caches of jade and other symbolic offerings inside ball courts when they were built to imbue them with magical powers.

Then there's American football. I'll never forget a game I attended in 2009 at Buckeyes Stadium between Ohio State and Navy. Navy hadn't played in the stadium since 1931, so it was a big deal. Following “The Star-Spangled Banner,” there was an F-18 flyover and recorded greetings on the scoreboard from military personnel stationed in Afghanistan. For the grand finale, the marching band performed their “script Ohio” ceremony, and former astronaut and U.S. senator John Glenn showed up as the honorary guest to dot the
i
. The entire experience was a kind of nationalistic spectacle affirming U.S. military strength in a time of war. No one seemed to question why such a rite would precede a ball game. It seemed entirely natural—like part of the game.

 

What do you think the future of the ball might be? Will we still be bouncing and kicking them thousands of years from now?

 

I'm no futurist and am way more comfortable in the past, but I'm pretty confident that the ball will still be kicking, or being kicked, around for a very long time. Obviously, there's been a trend toward the virtualization of play and there is definitely some cause for alarm as more and more kids spend their time plugged in and detached from the physical world. I'm no Luddite, and I believe the studies that indicate that kids playing
Madden NFL
or
NBA 2K12
are still playing, or at least their brains are playing. But we're physical beings who need to move our bodies now and then to maintain at least a modicum of mental and physical health. And there's really nothing like a plain old ball to engage our bodies and minds completely.

An interesting study was done recently looking at what happens to our brains while watching sports. The study showed that about one-fifth of the neurons in our pre-motor cortex that fire when we perform an action, say kicking a ball, also fire when we watch someone else do it. So in a very real way, our brains are
in
the game even when we're just watching. But that's still an 80 percent gap in brain activity—not to mention the 100 percent gap in physical activity—between actually playing a sport and just watching it.

In terms of the ball itself, I do think we'll continue to see it evolve in interesting ways. Some researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have been developing a “smart football” which contains a tiny GPS and accelerometer to continuously measure the location and speed of the ball. Aside from potentially taking some of the guesswork out of refereeing plays, the developers see applications for training players. With smart balls and gloves, for example, a quarterback can get real-time data on how he's throwing and make adjustments to improve precision. But even the most high-tech balls will still be subject to the quirks of physics and human error. The Adidas “jabulani” soccer ball used during the 2010 World Cup was a thing to behold with only eight (down from 14 in the previous World Cup) spherically molded panels and a “Grip 'n' Groove” surface technology designed to make the ball more aerodynamic. Despite such advances, the ball was widely criticized by players and was even blamed for low-scoring games in the first round of competition. Brazilian striker Luis Fabiano decried the ball as having supernatural powers because it changed direction in midair. Portugal, which beat North Korea 7-0 with it, thought it was just perfect.