"Sliotar A sliotar or sliothar () is a hard solid sphere slightly larger than a tennis ball, consisting of a cork core covered by two pieces of leather stitched together. Sometimes called a ""dust"" or ""hurling ball"", it resembles a baseball with more pronounced stitching. It is used in the Gaelic games of hurling, camogie, and rounders. An official Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) sliotar, as used in top level hurling competitions such as the National Hurling League or the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championships is subject to strict regulations as regards its size, mass and composition. The following regulations apply: Approved"
"1886 in Dublin. Prior the game, there was debate between the teams as regards the size of the sliotar. Treston made a sliotar at a nearby saddler, which was used in the game, and went on to be a prototype for the standard sliotar used from then on. Johnny McAuliffe (born 1896, Bruff, County Limerick; died 1960, in Limerick) is credited with the modern design. Before his improvements the ball tended to be inconsistent due to poor manufacturing. It was also heavier than modern sliotars (over 200g), and due to being made partly with horse-hair, tended to lose shape during"
"sliotars carry a GAA mark of approval. The GAA maintains a list of approved suppliers, based on manufacturers who pass their inspection. Early (pre-GAA) sliotars used various materials, depending on the part of the country, including combinations of wood, leather, rope and animal hair and even hollow bronze. In the early years of the GAA, there was no specific standard for the size or weight of sliotars. The man credited with initial standardisation of the sliotar is Ned Treston (1862–1949) of Gort, County Galway. He was selected to play in a match between South Galway and North Tipperary in February"
"Basque pelota Basque pelota ("""" in the original Basque language also """" in Spanish, """" in French) is the name for a variety of court sports played with a ball using one's hand, a racket, a wooden bat or a basket, against a wall (""frontis or Fronton"") or, more traditionally, with two teams face to face separated by a line on the ground or a net. The roots of this class of games can be traced to the Greek and other ancient cultures. The term """" probably comes from the Vulgar Latin term ""pilotta"" (ball game). It is a diminutive"
"ball unless they are the goalkeeper (or a defender on the line for a penalty) and this must be released within three steps. Players may not kick the ball, but can drag the ball with their foot. Although there is a statutory size for the ball to be used in the games, there is often a custom of using a sliotar in one half and a shinty ball in the other. Each half lasts 35 minutes. The first games played were challenge matches between London Camanachd and London GAA in 1896 and Glasgow Cowal and Dublin Celtic in 1897 and"
"Stoolball Stoolball is a sport that dates back to at least the 15th century, originating in Sussex, southern England. It may be an ancestor of cricket (a game it resembles), baseball, and rounders, in fact stoolball is sometimes called ""cricket in the air"". There is a tradition that it was played by milkmaids who used their milking stools as a ""wicket"" and the bittle, or milk bowl as a bat. Hence its archaic name of ""bittle-battle."" The sport of stoolball is strongly associated with Sussex; it has been referred to as Sussex's 'national' sport and a Sussex game or pastime."
"a few localities have preserved traditional sports from before the standardisation of games. These include the ba games of Jedburgh and Kirkwall, and various forms of folk shinty, known as knottie or hummie, which use improvised materials. The Highland Games are a distinctive feature of the national sporting culture. There are numerous annual games hosted in the Highlands including Braemar and Dunoon. They are also popular in various parts of the world, where large numbers of Scottish emigrants have settled. Events at the Highland Games often test physical strength, such as the weight over the bar and sheaf toss, and"
"is one of many bat-and-ball sports existing worldwide which have no known origin. Others are the definitely Celtic sports of hurling and shinty. Golf and hockey are other British ball games involving a club or stick while croquet was apparently imported from France and globally there are games such as Sweden's brännboll, Italy's , India's gilli-danda, Finland's pesäpallo and Samoa's kilikiti. However, it is generally believed that cricket essentially belongs to the same family of bat-and-ball games as stoolball, rounders and baseball but whether it evolved from any of these, or ""vice versa"", cannot be determined. There is a 1523"
"and boys. The Oxford English Dictionary considers it unlikely that ""stool ball"" could have been corrupted into ""stobball"". Stoolball Stoolball is a sport that dates back to at least the 15th century, originating in Sussex, southern England. It may be an ancestor of cricket (a game it resembles), baseball, and rounders, in fact stoolball is sometimes called ""cricket in the air"". There is a tradition that it was played by milkmaids who used their milking stools as a ""wicket"" and the bittle, or milk bowl as a bat. Hence its archaic name of ""bittle-battle."" The sport of stoolball is strongly"
"was often played as a challenge match between different parishes or baronies, and was frequently attended with injuries taken in good part. At this time there were two distinct versions of a game of ball and stick. In the northern part of Ireland, it was called ""camán"" (English: ""commons""), and played in the winter. A hard wooden ball, or ""crag"", was struck with a narrow wooden stick, but could not be handled (as in modern shinty). In the southern parts the game was called ""iomán"" or ""báire"" and played in summer. The ball, or ""sliothar"" was made of animal hair,"
"Knotty The game of knotty is a Scottish team sport. It is a variation of the game of shinty as played in the fishing communities of Lybster, Caithness. It used to be played widely in the town, as was shinty in the rest of Caithness, but it ceased to be played around the end of the 19th century, until 1993 when it was revived by local enthusiasts. It involves a stick (knotty), which can be almost any form of wooden implement, and a cork fishing float as ball with varying sizes of players. Local history books suggest knotty was invented"
"Matrak Matrak is an Ottoman combat sport based on sword and shield fighting. Invented by famous Bosniak statesman of the Ottoman Empire, historian and scientist Nasuh Matrakčija Visočak ""(full name in Turkish: Nasuh bin Karagöz bin Abdullah el-Bosnavî)"" in the 16th century. It is played with wooden sticks covered with leather simulating a sword, and a wooden leather covered shield. The top of the sticks are rounded and slightly wider than the body resembling bowling pins. The game is a kind of combat simulation, and is played on a lawn. It was used by Ottoman soldiers as practice for melee"
"are Greek. The various modern games played with a ball or balls and subject to rules are treated under their various names, such as polo, cricket, football, etc. Several sports use a ball in the shape of a prolate spheroid: Ball A ball is a round object (usually spherical but sometimes ovoid) with various uses. It is used in ball games, where the play of the game follows the state of the ball as it is hit, kicked or thrown by players. Balls can also be used for simpler activities, such as catch or juggling. Balls made from hard-wearing materials"
"play, and become soggy in wet conditions. The brown colour also meant that players tended to lose sight of the sliotar against crowded backdrops such as the crowd in Croke Park. McAuliffe's changes were to introduce a cork core, with a 2 piece white-tanned leather covering as the standard materials. These changes led to a harder wearing ball, which had better visibility (the white-tanned pigskin was impervious to grass stains and water resistant). The construction materials also meant that the ball was only about half as heavy as Treston's version. In the early 2000s, the GAA experimented with using sliotars"
"competed for the Celtic Cup, against teams from Wales and Ireland, since the inaugural event in 2006. Scotland is the ""Home of Golf"", and is well known for its courses. As well as its world-famous Highland Games (athletic competitions), it is also the home of curling, and shinty, a stick game similar to Ireland's hurling. Scotland has 4 professional ice hockey teams that compete in the Elite Ice Hockey League. Scottish cricket is a minority game. The earliest extant literature written in what is now Scotland, was composed in Brythonic speech in the sixth century and has survived as part"
"international matches. Another sport with common ancestry is bandy, which is played on ice. In fact, in Scottish Gaelic the name for bandy is ""ice shinty"" (camanachd-deighe) and once upon a time bandy and shinty (and shinney) could be used interchangeably in the English language. Hurling, an Irish pastime for at least 2,000 years similar to shinty, is derived from the historic game common to both peoples. Shinty/Hurling appears prominently in the legend of Cúchulainn, the Celtic mythology hero. A similar game was played on the Isle of Man known as cammag, a name cognate with camanachd. The old form"
"Hailes (ball game) Hailes or clacken is a Scottish ball game which dates to the 18th century and achieved its widest popularity in the nineteenth. It has now virtually died out, replaced by football, except at The Edinburgh Academy, where an exhibition match is played annually. The game is similar to shinty but played with wooden bats known as clackens. The clacken, or ""clackan"", is described in the Scottish National Dictionary as ""a wooden hand-bat or racquet used by boys at The Edinburgh Academy and Royal High School"". It is derived from the Scots word ""cleckinbrod"", derived in turn from"
"usually just whatever was available), the way in which the ball was thrown, the method of scoring, the method of making outs, the layout of the field and the number of players involved. Oină is a Romanian traditional sport, similar in many ways to baseball and lapta. In an 1838 book entitled ""The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England"", Joseph Strutt claimed to have shown that baseball-like games can be traced back to the 14th century, in particular an English game called stoolball. The earliest known reference to stoolball is in a 1330 poem by William Pagula, who"
"is also slang for someone who sports a shaved head. In Polandball, numbered pool balls are used to denote aboriginal, prehistoric, or native peoples who do not have a flag of their own. Green 6-balls also denote extraterrestrials. Billiard ball A billiard ball is a small, hard ball used in cue sports, such as carom billiards, pool, and snooker. The number, type, diameter, color, and pattern of the balls differ depending upon the specific game being played. Various particular ball properties such as hardness, friction coefficient and resilience are important to accuracy. Early balls were made of various materials, including"
"in 15th-century Scotland, the game's ancient origins are unclear and much debated. Some historians trace the sport back to the Roman game of paganica, in which participants used a bent stick to hit a stuffed leather ball. One theory asserts that paganica spread throughout Europe as the Romans conquered most of the continent, during the first century BC, and eventually evolved into the modern game. Others cite chuiwan (""chui"" means striking and ""wan"" means small ball) as the progenitor, a Chinese game played between the eighth and fourteenth centuries. A Ming Dynasty scroll dating back to 1368 entitled ""The Autumn"
"Shinty Shinty () is a team game played with sticks and a ball. Shinty is now played mainly in the Scottish Highlands, and amongst Highland migrants to the big cities of Scotland, but it was formerly more widespread in Scotland, and was even played for a considerable time in northern England and other areas in the world where Scottish Highlanders migrated. While comparisons are often made with field hockey, the two games have several important differences. In shinty, a player is allowed to play the ball in the air and is allowed to use both sides of the stick, called"
"Basque. In Spanish this is called ""levantamiento de carro"" and in French ""lever de charette"". Literally ""scythe game"", this sport is also known as ""segalariak"" (scythers), ""sega proba"" (scythe test), ""sega apustua"" (scythe bet) or ""segalaritza"" (scything). The earliest record of this sport comes from a bertso dating back to 1880 about a competition in Iturriotz. In this sport competitors (called ""segalari"") either compete to cut the most grass in a given period of time (usually one hour) or they are each given plots of grass of the same size and the competition is to see who can scythe theirs"
"Klootschieten Klootschieten (""Ball shooting"" in English) is a sport in the Netherlands and East Frisia, Germany. In the game, participants try to throw a ball (the kloot) as far as they can. It is most popular in the eastern regions of Twente and Achterhoek. It is known in Northern Germany and the Netherlands. The game is ultimately of Frisian origin. It is a relatively difficult throwing style that requires speed, power, and concentration. The distance of the throw is measured by meters. The sport was connected to betting, drinking and disorderly conduct, often gaining a bad reputation and was banned"
"is a team sport – related to hockey, hurling, shinty, and bandy – which was first recorded in Wales in the eighteenth century. The game is played on a large level field between teams of up to thirty players each of them equipped with a ""bando"": a curve-ended stick resembling that used in field hockey. Although no formal rules are known, the objective of the game was to strike a ball between two marks which served as goals at either end of the pitch. Popular in Glamorgan in the nineteenth century, the sport all but vanished by the end of"
"Caid (sport) Caid () is the name given to various ancient and traditional Irish football games. ""Caid"" is now used by people in some parts of Ireland to refer to modern Gaelic football. The word ""caid"" originally referred to the ball which was used. It was made out of animal skin, with a natural bladder inside. ""Caid"" is believed to have influenced the modern sport of Gaelic football the rules of which were officially published in 1887 and is now organised and governed by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) as an amateur sport. There is some evidence that ""caid"" was"
"Quidditch (sport) Quidditch is a sport of two teams of seven players each mounted on broomsticks played on a hockey rink-sized pitch. It is based on a fictional game of the same name invented by author J. K. Rowling, which is featured in the ""Harry Potter"" series of novels and related media. The game is also sometimes referred to as muggle quidditch to distinguish it from the fictional game, which involves magical elements such as flying broomsticks and enchanted balls. In the ""Harry Potter"" universe, a ""muggle"" is a person without the power to use magic. The pitch is rectangular"
"Kilikiti Kilikiti is one of several forms of the game of cricket. Originating in Samoa (English missionaries introduced their game of cricket in the early 19th century), it spread throughout Polynesia and can now be found around the world in areas with strong Polynesian populations. The game is the national sport of Samoa, and is played in many other Pacific countries, including amongst the Pacific Islander diaspora in New Zealand. The ball is made of a very hard rubber wrapped in pandanus. Players are not protected by any padding or masks, and will often wear only a lava-lava. The sennit-wrapped"
"held different names from glen to glen, including cluich-bhall (""play-ball"" in English) and in the Scottish Lowlands, where it was formerly referred to as ""Hailes"", ""common""/""cammon"" (""caman""), ""cammock"" (from Scottish Gaelic ""camag""), ""knotty"" and various other names, as well as the terms still used to refer to it in modern Gaelic, ""camanachd"" or ""iomain"". Shinty was once a popular game in lowland Scotland, as shown by its name Shintie, a term which took that form around 1700, displacing the earlier Shinnie - of which there is a written record about 100 years earlier. Shinnie may also derive from ""shin"" in"
"with lace-up boots or moccasins, and with T-shirts or golf shirts, is becoming increasingly familiar at Highland Games. The kilt is associated with a sense of Scottish national pride and will often be seen being worn, along with a football top, when members of the Tartan Army are watching a football or rugby match. The small sgian-dubh knife is sometimes replaced by a wooden or plastic alternative or omitted altogether for security concerns: for example, it typically is not allowed to be worn or carried onto a commercial aircraft. Though the origins of the Irish kilt continue to be a"
"with the outdoor lawn game known as bowls and is thus distantly related to billiard sports, some of which also retain the use of skittles. The skittle dates to the earliest known forms of bowling and ground billiards, even as far back as c. 3300 BCE in Ancient Egypt. Skittles is usually played indoors on a bowling alley, with one or more heavy balls, usually spherical but sometimes oblate, and several (most commonly nine) , or small bowling pins. The general object of the game is to use the ball(s) to knock over the skittles, either specific ones or all"
"Shuttlecock A shuttlecock (also called a bird or birdie) is a high-drag projectile used in the sport of badminton. It has an open conical shape formed by feathers (or a synthetic alternative) embedded into a rounded cork (or rubber) base. The shuttlecock's shape makes it extremely aerodynamically stable. Regardless of initial orientation, it will turn to fly cork first, and remain in the cork-first orientation. The name 'shuttlecock' originates in Victorian times, when badminton first became popular. It is frequently shortened to shuttle. The ""shuttle"" part of the name was probably derived from its back-and-forth motion during the game, resembling"
"as ""battledore and shuttlecock played with sides, across a string suspended some five feet from the ground"". The game may have originally developed among expatriate officers in British India, where it was very popular by the 1870s. Ball badminton, a form of the game played with a wool ball instead of a shuttlecock, was being played in Thanjavur as early as the 1850s and was at first played interchangeably with badminton by the British, the woollen ball being preferred in windy or wet weather. Early on, the game was also known as Poona or Poonah after the garrison town of"
"a few times. Ultimately, this competitive game prevailed. Its first league was developed by Hinrick Dunkhase in 1902. The sport divides into field fighting and stand fighting. Field fighting has two teams playing against each other, while stand fighting is individual. Stefan Albarus is the current record holder, throwing the ball 106.20 meters. The Klootschießen likely arose from an ancient Frisian weapon, which flung the Frisians on ships and opponents. The Frisian fighters are said to have been feared for their missiles. The term ""Kloot"" comes from Low German and derives from ""Kluten"". In further development of this sport, heavy"