Almost 119 years ago, a physical education teacher at a Springfield, Mass. YMCA was instructed to come up with a new indoor game to keep his gym class busy in winter. On Dec. 21, 1891, James Naismith wrote down 13 rules for the new sport he devised. His secretary typed them up, Naismith posted the two pages outside the gym, and basketball was born. On Dec.10, Sotheby’s will sell those original sheets for an estimated $2 million.
The Naismith family still owns the rules, which Sotheby’s calls “the birth certificate of basketball.” Ian Naismith, James’s grandson, is selling them for the benefit of the Naismith Foundation, which supports orphanages and children’s services around the world. Another important document in the Sotheby’s sale is Robert Kennedy’s copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, about which we’ve reported earlier.
Read more at The Boston Channel.
