Top Ten Sports

These are the top ten sports in the world from the lowest to highest, according to number of fans. Seems it is not the age of the sport, but the sport itself that makes it popular.

• American Football, # of fans: 400 million (began 1800s)
  
• Basketball,  # of fans: 400 million (began late 1800s)
  
• Golf,  # of fans: 450 million (began 1400s)
  
• Baseball,  # of fans: 500 million (began late 1800s)
  
• Table Tennis,  # of fans: 850 million (began 1900s)
  
• Volleyball,  # of fans: 900 million (began late 1800s)
  
• Tennis,  # of fans: 1 billion (began in 1300s)
  
• Field Hockey,  # of fans: 2 billion (began 3rd century BC)
  
• Cricket,  # of fans: 2.5 billion (began 1600s)
  
• Soccer,  # of fans: 3.5 billion (began 200s BC)

Basketball Quickie

This week in 1892, the first officially recognized basketball game was played at the YMCA gym in Springfield, Mass.

Baseball Clothing Rules

Basketball and hockey coaches wear business suits on the sidelines. Football coaches wear team-branded shirts and jackets and often ill-fitting pleated khakis. Baseball managers are the only ones who wear the same outfit as their players.

It goes back to the earliest days of the game, when the person known as the manager was the business manager, the guy who kept the books in order and the road trips on schedule.

The person we call the manager today, who arranges the roster and decides when to pull a pitcher, was known as the captain. He was usually also on the team as a player. There were also a few captains who didn’t play for the team and stuck to making decisions in the dugout, and they usually wore suits. With the passing of time, it became less common for the captain to play and on most teams they had strictly managerial roles. The rules do not state that a manager should wear a uniform or not.