No basketball

Hi!

Consider the following POD. Dr. Naismith is at the Springfrield YMCA in 1903 trying to think up a sport for some boys. He toys with the idea of throwing balls into a peach basket but he has trouble finding a peach basket. So he shrugs his shoulders and sends the boys ice skating or something like that. He eventually forgets about his game with the peach basket.

Basketball, as you know, plays an important role nowadays. It is one of the few American sports which requires very little personal investment (just a ball), so people who aren't rich can play it. Losing basketball will probably cause leisure activities to change in the inner city.

There are probably many more high schools which have basketball teams than soccer, football, or baseball teams. My high school had a basketball team and that was it --and I went to a private school.

In principle, you can even shoot baskets by yourself if there's a communal net up. Contrast with baseball, where you need two teams even if there is a communal ballfield. You can't bat balls by yourself easily, and you can't paly football by yourself.

So -- what happens if Naismith never invents basketball?

Thanks in advance,

ACG
 
For one thing, a lot of networks would be obliged to find something infinitely interesting and worthwhile to broadcast on weekend afternoons after the Super Bowl--like NHL hockey, assuming total assclowns like Gary Thorne and/or Pierre McGuire are kept away from the broadcast booth.

And if Naismith sends his kids to a frozen pond, that might just be the butterfly that makes hockey as big in the northern US as it is in Canada: now I'm envisioning a more robust NHL after World War II in which both the Montreal Maroons and the New York Americans survive, although both may decamp for other cities (e.g., Philadelphia and the Twin Cities). I'm envisioning earlier expansion of the NHL to cities like Cleveland, Baltimore, and St. Louis in the early '50s, and to the west coast (Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco) in the late '50s/early '60s, along with interior Canadian cities (Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg). Ideally, however, entries in the sun belt would not occur so there would be no nonsense like the Anaheim Ducks or Tampa Bay Lightning.

I will leave it for others to consider the absence of the NBA and the possible ramifications on inner city culture.
 
Baseball or soccer will probably be the main sport played be the inner-city kids if basketball weren't around. All you have to do is find an alley and a little bit of creativity, and you have game! You're going to have broken windows here and there, but kids will be kids. Sure, loners would be at a disadvantage, but a vast majority of kids out there have friends, and are not loners.

As for a winter sport, I guess ice hockey would be popular in the Northern States, just like it is right now in Minnesotta. As for the Southern States, I guess they would be playing baseball or football or soccer, or some other made-up game.
 
The benefits to Boxing would be huge. Its often been said, the next quick, 6"7, 240 lb. heavyweight champion is playing power forward in the NBA.
 
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