The First Team The First Team The First Team were the first players known to have played the sport of basketball, having been taught the game in 1891 by James Naismith, who is recognized as the inventor of the sport. The team comprised 18 players who were studying in Springfield, Massachusetts, to become executive secretaries of the YMCA and who, as part of their coursework, studied physical education with Naismith, who is said to have invented the game to teach teamwork skills to his charges. The team was inducted as a group into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as part of
The Massachusetts Game from a set of rules drawn up in 1858 by the Massachusetts Association of Base Ball Players at Dedham. Although it was recognizably a type of baseball, some features of the Massachusetts Game are very different from modern baseball: Two "modern" features of the Massachusetts Game were not present in New York-style rules drawn up the same year by National Association of Base Ball Players. The Massachusetts Game was more wide-open than modern "New York" baseball, with more scoring and, its proponents claimed, more excitement. First base was only 30 feet away from the striker. There was a constant supply