Baseball

Early Beginnings (1700s–1800s)

Baseball's origins are debated, but it likely evolved from older bat-and-ball games like rounders (popular in England) and cricket.The first recorded baseball game in North America was in 1838 in Canada, but the sport took off in the U.S.In 1845, Alexander Cartwright, a New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club member, formalized many modern rules, including a diamond-shaped field and three-out innings.

Professionalization & Growth 1850s–1900s

The first official baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was founded in 1869. The National League NL was formed in 1876, followed by the American League AL in 1901. The first World Series was played in 1903, with the Boston Red Sox then the Americans defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Golden Age 1920s–1950s

Babe Ruth revolutionized the game with his home run-hitting power, making baseball more popular than ever. Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947, playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers and paving the way for racial integration in baseball.

Modern Baseball 1960s–Present

Expansion teams and divisions grew, leading to more teams and playoff games. The designated hitter (DH) rule was introduced in the American League in 1973. International players became a huge part of MLB, with stars from Latin America, Asia, and beyond. Analytics and technology now play a major role in team strategies and player development.

Basketball

 Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball approximately 9.4 inches 24 cm in diameter through the defender's hoop a basket 18 inches 46 cm in diameter mounted 10 feet 3.048 m high to a backboard at each end of the court), while preventing the opposing team from shooting through their own hoop. A field goal is worth two points, unless made from behind the three-point line, when it is worth three. After a foul, timed play stops and the player fouled or designated to shoot a technical foul is given one, two or three one-point free throws. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but if regulation play expires with the score tied, an additional period of play overtime is mandated.

Players advance the ball by bouncing it while walking or running dribbling or by passing it to a teammate, both of which require considerable skill. On offense, players may use a variety of shots – the layup, the jump shot, or a dunk; on defense, they may steal the ball from a dribbler, intercept passes, or block shots; either offense or defense may collect a rebound, that is, a missed shot that bounces from rim or backboard. It is a violation to lift or drag one's pivot foot without dribbling the ball, to carry it, or to hold the ball with both hands then resume dribbling.

The five players on each side fall into five playing positions. 

The tallest player is usually the center, the second-tallest and strongest is the power forward, 

a slightly shorter but more agile player is the small forward, and the shortest players or the best ball handlers are the shooting guard and the point guard, 

who implement the coach's game plan by managing the execution of offensive and defensive plays (player positioning). Informally, players may play three-on-three, two-on-two, and one-on-one.

Invented in 1891 by Canadian-American gym teacher James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts, in the United States, 

basketball has evolved to become one of the world's most popular and widely viewed sports. The National Basketball Association (NBA) is the most significant professional basketball league in the world in terms of popularity, salaries, talent, and level of competition drawing most of its talent from U.S. college basketball. 

Outside North America, the top clubs from national leagues qualify to continental championships such as the Euro League and the Basketball Champions League Americas. The FIBA Basketball World Cup and Men's Olympic Basketball Tournament are the major international events of the sport and attract top national teams from around the world. Each continent hosts regional competitions for national teams, like EuroBasket and FIBA AmeriCup.

The FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup and women's Olympic basketball tournament feature top national teams from continental championships. 

The main North American league is the WNBA NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championship is also popular 

whereas the strongest European clubs participate in the Euro League Women.

Tennis

Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). 

Each player uses a tennis racket strung with a cord to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over or around a net and into the opponent's court. The object is to maneuver the ball in such a way that the opponent is not able to play a valid return. If a player is unable to return the ball successfully, the opponent scores a point.

Playable at all levels of society and at all ages, tennis can be played by anyone who can hold a racket, including wheelchair users. 

The original forms of tennis developed in France during the late Middle Ages. The modern form of tennis originated in Birmingham, 

England, in the late 19th century as lawn tennis. It had close connections to various field (lawn) games such as croquet and bowls as well as to the older racket sport today called real tennis.

The rules of modern tennis have changed little since the 1890s.

Two exceptions are that until 1961 the server had to keep one foot on the ground at all times 

and the adoption of the tiebreak in the 1970s. A recent addition to professional tennis has been the adoption of electronic review technology coupled with a point-challenge system, which allows a player to contest the line call of a point, a system known as Hawk-Eye.

Tennis is played by millions of recreational players and is a popular worldwide spectator sport. The four Grand Slam tournaments (also referred to as the majors) are especially popular and are considered the highest level of competition for the sport. 

These tournaments are the Australian Open, played on hardcourts; the French Open, played on red clay courts; Wimbledon, played on grass courts, and the US Open, also played on hardcourts. Additionally, 

tennis was one of the original Olympic sports, and has been consistently competed in the Summer Olympic Games since 1988.

CRICKET SPORT

 Cricket is one of many games in the "club ball" sphere that involve hitting a ball with a hand-held implement. 

Others include baseball which shares many similarities with cricket, 

both belonging in the more specific bat-and-ball games category, golf, hockey, tennis, squash, badminton and table tennis.

In cricket's case, a key difference is the existence of a solid target structure, the wicket originally, it is thought, a "wicket gate" through which sheep were herded, 

that the batter must defend. The cricket historian Harry Altham identified three "groups" of "club ball" games: the "hockey group", in which the ball is driven to and from between two targets the "golf group", 

in which the ball is driven towards an undefended target the hole; and the "cricket group", in which "the ball is aimed at a marked the wicket and driven away from it".

It is generally believed that cricket originated as a children's game in the south-eastern counties of England, sometime during the medieval period. 

Although there are claims for prior dates, the earliest definite reference to cricket being played comes from evidence given at a court case in Guildford in January 1597 Old Style, 

equating to January 1598 in the modern calendar. 

The case concerned ownership of a certain plot of land, 

and the court heard the testimony of a 59-year-old coroner, John Derrick, who gave witness that

Being a Scholler in the free school of Guildford he and diverse of his fellows did runner and play there at cricket and other players

Given Derrick's age, it was about half a century earlier when he was at school, and so it is certain that cricket was being played. In 1550 by boys in Surrey. The view that it was originally a children's game is reinforced by Randle Cotgrave's 1611 English-French dictionary in which he defined the noun "Crosse" as "the crooked staff wherewith boys play at cricket", and the verb form "crosser" as "to play at cricket".

One possible source for the sport's name is the Old English word "crick" or "crick" meaning a crutch or staff.

In Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, herived cricket from "cryce, Saxon, a stick". In Old French, the word "criquet" seems to have meant a kind of club or stick. Given the strong medieval trade connections between south-east England and the County of Flanders when the latter belonged to the Duchy of Burgundy, the name may have been derived from the Middle Dutch in use in Flanders at the time "krick", meaning a stick crook. 

Another possible source is the Middle Dutch word "krickstoel", meaning a long low stool used for kneeling in church that resembled the long low wicket with two stumps used in early cricket.

According to Heiner Gillmeister, a European language expert of Bonn University,"cricket" derives from the Middle Dutch phrase for hockey, "met de krik ketsen" "with the stick chase".

Sport

Sport includes all forms of competitive physical activity or games which,through casual or organized participation, at least in part aim to use, maintain or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants, and in some cases, entertainment for spectators.Sports can bring positive results to one's physical health. Hundreds of sports exist, from those between single contestants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. In certain sports such as racing, many contestants may compete, simultaneously or consecutively, with one winner; in others, the contest (a match) is between two sides, each attempting to exceed the other. Some sports allow a "tie" or "draw", in which there is no single winner; others provide tie-breaking methods to ensure one winner and one loser. A number of contests may be arranged in a tournament producing a champion. Many sports leagues make an annual champion by arranging games in a regular sports season, followed in some cases by playoffs.

Sport is generally recognised as system of activities which are based in physical athleticism or physical dexterity, with the largest major competitions such as the Olympic Games admitting only sports meeting this definition,and other organisations such as the Council of Europe using definitions precluding activities without a physical element from classification as sports.However, a number of competitive, but non-physical, activities claim recognition as mind sports. The International Olympic Committee (through ARISF) recognises both chess and bridge as bona fide sports, and SportAccord, the international sports federation association, recognises five non-physical sports: bridge, chess, draughts (checkers), Go and xiangqi,and limits the number of mind games which can be admitted as sports.

Sport is usually governed by a set of rules or customs, which serve to ensure fair competition, and allow consistent adjudication of the winner. Winning can be determined by physical events such as scoring goals or crossing a line first. It can also be determined by judges who are scoring elements of the sporting performance, including objective or subjective measures such as technical performance or artistic impression.

Records of performance are often kept, and for popular sports, this information may be widely announced or reported in sport news. Sport is also a major source of entertainment for non-participants, with spectator sport drawing large crowds to sport venues, and reaching wider audiences through broadcasting. Sport betting is in some cases severely regulated, and in some cases is central to the sport.

According to A.T. Kearney, a consultancy, the global sporting industry is worth up to $620 billion as of 2013.The world's most accessible and practised sport is running, while association football is the most popular spectator sport.