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Kickball (also known as soccer baseball in most of Canada and football rounders in the United Kingdom) is a
team sport A team sport includes any sport where individuals are organized into opposing sports team, teams which compete to win or cooperate to entertain their audience. Team members act together towards a shared objective. This can be done in a numb ...
and
league League or The League may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Leagues'' (band), an American rock band * ''The League'', an American sitcom broadcast on FX and FXX about fantasy football Sports * Sports league * Rugby league, full contact footba ...
game, similar to
baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...
. As in baseball, one team tries to score by having its players return a ball from home base to the field and then circle the bases, while the other team tries to stop them by tagging them " out" with the ball before they can return to the home base. Instead of hitting a small, hard ball with a bat, players kick an inflated rubber ball; this makes it more accessible to young children. As in baseball, teams alternate half-
inning In baseball, softball, and similar games, an inning is the basic unit of play, consisting of two halves or frames, the "top" (first half) and the "bottom" (second half). In each half, one team bats until three outs are made, with the other team ...
s. The team with the most runs after a predefined number of innings wins. Kickball is a popular playground game and is typically played among young, school-age children. The lack of both specialized equipment and highly skill-based positions (like
pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...
) makes the game an accessible introduction to other sports such as baseball and
softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...
.


History

Kickball, originally called "Kicking Baseball" was claimed to have been invented as early as 1910 by Dr. Emmett Dunn Angell in his noted book ''Play: Comprising Games for the Kindergarten, Playground, Schoolroom and College : How to Coach and Play Girls' Basket-ball, Etc'' (1910). His description and field illustration in this book is both the closest and earliest known precursor to the modern game of kickball. He also notes that "The game seems to afford equal enjoyment to the children and it gives a better understanding of the national game (Baseball), and at the same time affords them an exercise that is not too violent and is full of fun.". A later documented inventor claim, as early as 1917, was by Nicholas C Seuss, Supervisor of Cincinnati Park Playgrounds in
Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...
,
Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
. Seuss submitted his first documented overview of the game which included 12 rules and a field diagram in ''The Playground Book'', published in 1917. Kickball is referred to as "Kick Base Ball" and "Kick Baseball" in this book. Around 1920–1921 "Kick Ball" was used by physical education teachers in public schools to teach young boys and girls the basics of baseball. Around this time, the ball that was used was a
soccer ball A football (also known as football ball, soccer ball, or association football ball specifically in the United Kingdom) is the ball used in the sport of association football. The name of the ball varies according to whether the sport is called " ...
or
volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...
. It was played by ten to thirty players and the field included a "Neutral Zone": an area not to be entered until the ball has actually been kicked. There was no pitcher as the ball would be kicked from the home area, which was a 3 ft circle. The ball must pass beyond the 5 foot line. Base-runners could only advance one base on infield balls. Teams would switch sides only after all team members have kicked. During this time, it was played on the same field as baseball except that there was only one base corresponding to a
baseball diamond A baseball field, also called a ball field or baseball diamond, is the field upon which the game of baseball is played. The term can also be used as a metonym for a baseball park. The term sandlot is sometimes used, although this usually refers ...
's 2nd base. Multiple players could be on base at a time, but all needed to get home before the last kicker kicked and the kicking order had retired. There were also two short stop player positions: one between 1st and 2nd and the other between 2nd and 3rd. Home plate was marked by a 3 ft by 4 ft rectangle on the ground. Published in April 1922, Daniel Chase; Supervisor of Physical Education for the New York State Department of Education, describes the earliest known account of adults playing kickball. This game took place at a conference of rural teachers in Mooers Forks, Clinton County, NY where Daniel was teaching games that the teachers could in turn teach to their pupils. They did not have a ball, so they made one out of an old stocking and some rags. The ball was about 7 to 8 inches long and tied off with an old shoelace. The construction of this makeshift ball was demonstrated to the rural teachers by Mr. Braddock Wells. The teachers were assigned numbers to create teams; odd numbers on one team and even numbers on the other. The team captains chose college names to represent each team name. The odds chose Yale & the evens chose Princeton. The game of "Kick Baseball" was the last game they played at the conference to decide the championship for the day. Ten players were chosen for each team and the remaining were organized into a cheering section. Yale kicked first. On the field there was no pitcher, but an extra short-stop between first and second. Only three innings were completed in the heat that day, with Yale ending up as the victor winning 3 to 2. The cheering sections showed great sportsmanship, applauding all good plays impartially. American
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
correspondent
Ernie Pyle Ernest Taylor Pyle (August 3, 1900 – April 18, 1945) was a Pulitzer Prize–winning American journalist and war correspondent who is best known for his stories about ordinary American soldiers during World War II. Pyle is also notable for the ...
reported it being played by U.S. soldiers during the
Tunisia Campaign The Tunisian campaign (also known as the Battle of Tunisia) was a series of battles that took place in Tunisia during the North African campaign of the World War II, Second World War, between Axis powers, Axis and Allies of World War II, Allied ...
, 1942–43. "Kick Ball" was promoted as an informal game for soldiers by the United States Department of the Army as early as 1943. In this variant of the game, all kicks had to be home runs, by beating the kicked ball back to home after consecutive passes to all basemen before throwing them out at home.


Field

The game is typically played on a
softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...
diamond with an 8.5 inch to 16 inch diameter inflated rubber ball. As in baseball/softball, the game uses 3 bases, a pitcher's mound, and a home plate. Sometimes, in less formal games, the field is not bounded by a
fence A fence is a structure that encloses an area, typically outdoors, and is usually constructed from posts that are connected by boards, wire, rails or netting. A fence differs from a wall in not having a solid foundation along its whole length. ...
as in softball or baseball, but is open. This may result in informal rule changes to accommodate the field, such as home runs being counted by number of bounces instead of by distance. Also it can be played on a rectangular blacktop area with chalk or paint outlines.


Popularity in the United States

In the past, kickball was mostly considered a child's game in the United States, although recently many US cities have created kickball leagues for adults. Some US cities have multiple organized leagues for adults over 21 years of age. It gained prominence in the 1970s.


Popularity outside the United States

Kickball is popular among youth in
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
. Known as balyagu °œì•¼êµ¬ (foot-baseball) it is a staple in PE classes within elementary schools. Kickball is referred to as Soccer-Baseball, Chinese Baseball or California Kickball in some parts of
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. In
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
kickball is played by elementary school students and is known as キックベース(Kickbase). In England, the variation is often played in P.E. lessons in schools and is referred to as 'Football-Rounders', a mix of
association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
and
rounders Rounders is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams. Rounders is a striking and fielding team game that involves hitting a small, hard, leather-cased ball with a rounded end wooden, plastic, or metal bat. The players score by running aroun ...
. A related sport of kickingball is also popular in South America, played by Venezuelan refugees in Argentina.


See also

*
Matball Matball, known in some areas as Big Base is a sport, usually played indoors and sometimes outdoors. Matball is a safe haven game (sometimes termed a bat-and-ball game, despite the lack of a bat) similar to kickball, but with the key difference tha ...
*
Baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...
*
Leg cricket Leg cricket is a form of cricket played between two teams of eleven players on a circular ground with a radius between . The game is played in South Asian countries including India, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. Leg cricket involves using legs ...
* Baseball5 - baseball with only a ball, batters hit the ball with a hand


References


External links

* * * * {{Team Sport Baseball genres Ball and bat games Sports originating in the United States