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Hi, all you wonderful people listening.
This is Joy Dolo. As you no doubt know, I'm not afraid to get silly, like really silly, like keep an elephant in my closet, make a couch out of gum, collect ancient toilets, silly, silly, silly.
But today I've got something very unsilly to talk about.
In fact, it's quite serious.
Forever ago is a public media show.
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So chip in now and a very sincere, thank you.
Sports balls, get your sports balls, one for $2, two for $5 or five for $20.
Hey Joy, are you having a yard sale?
Oh, hey Xenia. Yeah, I cleaned out the sports wing of my closet last weekend.
Wait, your closet is big enough to have wings?
My closet has room for things you can't even imagine.
Anyway, fancy a quick game?
I've got a basketball, four softballs, six hockey pucks, definitely a few bowling balls, a football.
Joy, that is definitely not a football.
Oh, sure it is. Go long!
Dolafick's left, hops right, she twirls center, Does a split.
She aims, and... AH!
The ball is alive! Holy field hockey!
That's not a football.
Wait, Joy! That's the Nine Painted Armadillo.
Look at its pointy ears, and that long rubbery tail and the nine stripes.
They're an animal native to Mexico.
But what was it doing in the sports wing of my closet?
It probably thought it was a good place to burrow.
Eeeek! Aw, sorry to wake you little buddy.
I'll just put her down in the grass.
OK, here's an actual football.
Go long Joy! Welcome to Forever Ago from APM Studios.
I'm Joy Dolo. I'm here today with my co -host, Xenia from San Diego, California.
Hi, Xenia. Hi, Joy.
Oh, and this nine -banded armadillo that had been napping in the sports section of my closet for a mystery amount of time.
Forever Go is a non -profit public radio program.
Which means we rely on support from you, our listeners, to keep the show going.
There's lots of ways you can support the show.
You can donate, buy our merch, or become a Smartypass subscriber.
Head to forevergo .org to show your support.
And thank you. Whew!
So good to get my closet cleaned out.
It was getting out of control in there.
Way too many sport balls for all my sporty needs.
Zennia, do you play sports?
Yeah, I play soccer.
Oh, okay! How long have you been playing soccer?
For like four years.
Nice, what position do you play?
I like to play a winger, so that's the outside midfielder.
Oh, cool! So we do a lot of running, we can score, and can defend as well.
Yeah defend the team!
Okay so if you can be an Olympic athlete in any sport which would you pick?
Okay I think I would choose like the steeple chase from track and field or swimming.
The steeple chase, can you, imagine I'm an alien and I have no idea what that is.
Could you describe it for me?
Yeah okay so it's like I don't really know how many laps it is but it's around the And there's like big hurdles and then there's one hurdle where there's like water.
So you jump over and then you like splash in the water.
And then like you keep running.
So I don't know, I've just always thought that was fun.
Yeah that looks fun, running and water.
Count me in! Yeah. I can't believe how many different sports there are.
Zenia, how many can you name?
Um, soccer, baseball, tennis, football, swimming, ice skating, curling, track and field, rugby.
Oh my goodness. I think that's all I have right now.
Oh man, I wish I knew more.
I think you took all of mine.
Cricket? Cricket's a game.
Oh yeah. Yeah. Did you say you said swimming?
You said football? Yeah.
There's lots of sports.
Long story short, there's lots of sports.
I can't name them all.
Oh, skiing, skiing.
Yeah, skiing. Skiing is a sport.
I wonder what the first sport was.
A -arh. Seems like our armadillo friend wants to know too.
We've actually gotten some listener questions about this.
Hi. My name is Clara and I live in Pennsylvania.
My question is who invents his sports and what do they look like when they were invented?
Hi, my name is Eddie and I live in Colorado.
My question is why were sports created?
Such great questions.
Thanks to Clara and Eddie for sending them in.
Historians think the first sport or game that humans competed in was probably running or wrestling.
Makes sense. You don't need any equipment to do those.
But what about the first team sport?
Eh eh eh! It really feels like the Armadillo is trying to tell us something.
Come here you little friend, get over here.
Oh, fina almente. That's Spanish for finally.
Y me llamo Agustina.
Whoa! You can talk?
Are fresh grubs the most delicioso food in the world?
Yeah, I can talk. So, Agustina the Armadillo?
Do you know what the first team sport was?
I've got a pretty good guess.
As you know, we armadillos are famous for our love of archaeology.
Obviously. And in my studies, I've learned that many archaeologists think the first team sport came from the same place as me, the land that today is known as Mexico.
Wait, I bet you're talking about a sport called the Mesoamerican Ball Game.
I've heard of this.
Clado que sí. That's Spanish for of course.
The Mesoamerican ball game has been played in Mexico, a .k .a.
my home country, for thousands of years.
I can tell you all about it.
Please. I must know everything about this historically important game with a very generic -sounding name.
Well, there's a reason for the name.
It's because historians actually came up with it to describe a whole bunch of games.
Even though they say Mesoamerican Ball Game, they're actually talking about several relations games that were played on similar style courts with similar rules.
These games started around the same time, in roughly the same part of the world, Mesoamerica.
This is a region that includes parts of modern -day Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Belize.
Exacto. And in these different places, the games they played probably had different names and slightly different rules.
But because they looked similar, people thought they were all the same game.
Just like how people think all armadillos are the same, but hello, hola, we're actually twenty different species.
Oh I get it. It's like if thousands of years from now, archeologists came here and discovered tennis courts, pickleball courts and ping pong tables.
They might call them the North American paddle game.
In all three sports, people hit balls with paddles or rackets.
So someone might think they're all basically the same game Exactly the very oldest Mesoamerican court that we found so far was built in southern Mexico in 1650 BC that's almost 3700 years ago a group of people called the mocaya lived there mocha means corn people in their native language Because they were farmers See thousands of years ago.
The area where the mocaya lived was covered in dense rainforest It was a warm, wet place.
And archaeologists think that this climate helps the mochaia grow crops because plants love warm, wet weather.
Oh, and another fun fact about the Mocaya people, archaeologists think they may have been the first people to consume chocolate.
Muy bien, amigas. Like I mentioned, the area where the mochaia lived is also where the very first ball court was discovered in a place called Paso de la Amada.
Picture this. Baso de la Amada is a few miles away from the Pacific Ocean.
The ball court discovered there was 260 feet long and 26 feet wide.
That's about 100 feet shorter than a football field.
And much more narrow.
Along the sides were two mounds, or hills, with benches built into them.
Like a stadium. Right.
Archaeologists think that the game was usually played with two teams of about five players.
They would hit a hard ball back and forth.
In some games, the goal was to keep it from hitting the ground, and in others, they might have tried to launch it through a small hoop mounted high in the air.
In some versions, players only hit the ball with their hands and in others, it was no hands allowed just like soccer.
Except, instead of kicking the ball, players would usually hit it with their hips.
Sometimes, they would wear padded belts made of leather, cloth or wood to help protect them.
But not always. Ouch!
Wouldn't have been a problem for me.
Did you know armadillo means little armored one in Spanish?
These hips are hearty.
Wait, how do archaeologists know all of this?
Do they find some sort of ancient rulebook?
Not quite. Remember, this was a really long time ago.
Lots of history wasn't written down, so the archeologists who study this had to be like detectives.
Oh yeah, archeologists figure out what life was like for people in the past by using anything that those people left behind.
So they can look for clues in all kinds of things, everyday objects they find, art like paintings and pottery, even the natural world.
See to figure out the rules of the game Archaeologists have studied the ball courts themselves they've read descriptions that other people eventually wrote of the games and They even looked at ancient artwork that shows the ball games being played Oh, yeah I've seen little clay figurines of ball players from thousands of years ago kind of like ancient bobbleheads Plus remember how I mentioned the balls the game was played with well Archaeologists actually found some of those ancient balls during an archaeological dig and analyzed them in a lab.
It turns out they're made from the Castilla elastica tree.
Hold on, this calls for my handy -dandy tree ID app.
Castilla elastica. Castilla elastica.
Of course, the rubber tree.
It grows in Mesoamerica and ancient people there used to use its sticky sap to make rubber.
So the ball game is played with rubber balls.
It would make sense for a game played with rubber balls to have started in a place with lots of rubber trees!
Dolo shoots, dolo scores!
I love the game of discovery.
And you know what other game I love?
This is the game where we try to put three different things from history in order.
In honor of my great sports ball sale, today's things are all round.
Snow globes, ball pits, and marbles.
What do you think, Zinnia?
Which came first, second, and most recently in history?
What's a ball pit? Like, you know those big, those plastic -colored balls that are in like a big pit kind of thing?
Okay, those. Yeah, when you jump in them and they'll kind of go all over the place?
Yeah. Yeah. I think maybe snow, we got marbles first because I think those are kind of just like round like glass balls kind of.
And then snow globes because I don't know that's like glass.
And then you put something inside of them and there's like fake snow.
and then ball pits cause the balls are like plastic?
I think. Yes. That makes sense.
So these are like material based kind of things.
Like we have glass first, then we make marbles and then we expand the marble and put snow globe stuff inside of it.
And then we are onto plastic.
So that's further. I think that's a great guess.
So we have marbles and then snow globes and then ball pits.
Yeah. Awesome. I think that's great.
We'll hear the answers at the end of the episode right after the credits.
So stick around. Hi, Forever A Go friends.
We love hearing from our listeners.
We're working on an episode all about school uniforms, and we want to hear from you.
Do you think kids should wear uniforms to school?
Why or why not? If you could design a school uniform for everyone in your school to wear every day, what would it look like?
Zenia, what do you think?
What kind of uniform would you design?
Yeah, I don't think kids should wear uniform to school.
I don't like uniforms and I wear them and they're like ugly.
They have ugly colors.
It's khaki and green, so I don't like it.
And then I think if I were to design a school uniform, I think it would be like blue pants and then like a school shirt Because I don't I think I kind of want just like a loose uniform Did you think it's blue pants and like a blue shirt or is the shirt a different color?
I think the shirt would maybe be a different color But like a nice color But I don't know.
What color but a nice color.
Yeah Because I just don't want it to be packing green because those are like I don't know.
I don't like those Those are fun.
No. Listeners, let us know what you think about school uniforms. Record yourself sharing your opinion on school uniforms or describing your dream design and send it to us at foreverago .org slash contact.
Can't wait to hear from you.
Thanks and keep listening.
Brainzon Universe is a family of podcasts for kids and their adults.
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The new aliens are looking for me!
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Tickets available now.
You're listening to Forever Ago.
I'm Joy. I'm Xenia.
And I'm Agustina, the armadillo.
Hahahaha! Agustina has been telling us all about the Mesoamerican ball game, which many historians believe was the first team sport.
Before the break, we learned that this game is at least 3 ,700 years old.
Artifacts like sculptures and pottery have helped archaeologists better understand how it was played.
Many historians believe the Mesoamerican ball game started in southern Mexico.
That's where the oldest ball court ever discovered is.
Plus, the game was played with rubber balls, and this area is home to rubber treats.
But no matter where the game started, we know for sure that back then it was hugely popular with people from all walks of life.
That's right. I actually did an interview with someone about this.
Because, as we all know, armadillos are famous for our love of informational interviews.
Obviously. I talked to Marika Stahl, she's an archaeologist and an expert on the Mesoamerican ball game.
So just like today with our modern sports, right, there are people who take it very seriously and invest a lot of time and money into it, a lot of training.
Maybe they don't go onto being professional.
Maybe they do, but if you're a professional athlete, right, people worship you.
You're paid a lot of money.
Uh, you're a celebrity.
Like Steph Curry. Or Trinity Rodman.
But then there's the other side of it where people play on the blacktop, right?
They play basketball on the blacktop, and it's just for fun.
Okay, this makes sense.
So just like sports today, people played at all different levels.
Correcto. And no matter what, people loved to watch. Here's Marika again.
So it was about bringing the community together.
We find these clay models of ball courts and ball games.
And there are people watching.
There's vendors selling food.
They also show dancers and musicians.
So these ball games were also just big events.
So cool. Ball courts have been found all the way north into Arizona, and east across the sea into the Caribbean.
In other words, it spread more than a million square miles.
Do we know how it spread?
Archaeologists aren't exactly sure.
Back then, people couldn't just take a video of themselves playing and upload it to Lick Talk.
Lick Talk? Sorry, I just needed to eat a grub.
Delicioso. OK, that's my last one.
Anyway, I meant to say TikTok.
The people who were playing this game were moving around, especially to trade goods during this time.
Also, if the ball game is actually older than we think, it could have spread because people were nomadic back then, which means they moved around a lot.
Verdad, true. We know versions of the game were played by three of the most powerful empires in Central America, first the Olmec, then the Mayas, and finally the Aztecs.
These were each advanced, highly organized civilizations with beautiful ceramics and sculptures, large cities, and complex religious practices.
And the ballgame was really important to them.
Archaeologists know the game was played as part of religious ceremonies, and sometimes to settle arguments with other groups.
The Aztecs were in power when the Spanish arrived in the 1500s.
That's right, the Spanish colonized, which means they took over the Aztecs' land.
And they tried to force them to give up their language and traditions.
Did that affect the ballgame?
It did. The Spanish banned all types of sports and games that were played by the Aztecs.
But the Aztecs kept playing games in secret because it was a huge part of their identity and culture.
Then, after 300 years of being ruled by the Spanish, Mexico won its independence in 1810.
Right. And by that time, the native civilizations were almost wiped out by disease and violence.
But the descendants of the ball players kept the sport alive.
And when Mexico got its independence, they could start playing openly again.
I actually saw a version of the game being played once.
Oh, that's so cool!
Where did you see it?
I was in Mérida, which is in the Yucatan Peninsula, that's in Mexico, and they would hit a big like heavy rubber ball with their hips and they like pass each other and then like they try to hit it up into a goal.
It's like a hoop like this really high up.
And then at the end they lit the ball on fire and kept playing with it like that.
It was really cool.
That sounds painful.
So they hit the ball with their hips into a hoop, and then after they did that they set it on fire and kept hitting the ball with their hips?
Yeah. They passed the ball around and we got to feel how heavy it was.
It was really heavy.
Oh that's so neat. People play different versions all over the world, like Pelota Mixteca.
That's a version where players can use their hands to hit the ball.
I talked with a player from California named Michael Hernandez about it.
He told me that about a hundred years ago, players started wearing a glove on one hand, made out of something sort of unusual.
And it began just as an old huarache, an old, what do you call them here, sandal.
So the sandal was just old, taken apart, and they just wrapped it right here.
just so that their hand wouldn't hurt as much. But the gloves today have leveled up!
Like baseball gloves, they're made of leather, but instead of being shaped like a basket to catch the ball, they look more like a small pillow with a strap you put your hand into.
And get this, the outside is covered in shiny silver nailheads, which help propel the ball when you hit it.
Michael showed me his son's glove, which is a beautiful Azul Celeste, or SkyBlue.
Wait, Michael's son plays too?
I love a family that sports together.
I know. Michael's son is nine, and he's part of a long line of pelota players.
My grandfather played.
His grandfather played.
His father played. So it's just something that's always been, you know, handed down generation after generation.
It's something that's been handed down to us.
It's part of our, uh, of our bloodline.
Like it's part of our culture, it's part of our inheritance.
That's so cool! Truly!
If you want to see videos of the game being played, we put a link to Pelota Mixteca Fresno's Instagram page in the show notes.
Amazing! Hey I actually think I've got some old sandals in the shoeing of my closet.
What do you say we try and get a game going?
You're on! Vamos! Let's go!
The Mesoamerican ballgame may be the oldest team sport in the world.
It's actually a collection of similar games that have been played across parts of North and Central America and the Caribbean for over 3 ,000 years.
And it's still being played in many different parts of the region today.
This episode was written by...
Nico Gonzales -Whistler.
It was produced by Ruby Guthrie.
It was edited by Shayla Farzon.
Fact Checking by Anna Goldfield.
Engineering help from Alex Simpson and Debra Reeves with sound design by Rachel Bries.
Original theme music by Mark Sanchez.
We had additional production help from the rest of the Brains on Universe team.
Molly Bloom, Rosie DuPont, Lauren Humpert, Joshua Ray, Mark Sanchez, Sandan Totten, Charlotte Traver, Anna Wegle, And Haran Woldusolasi Beth Perlman is our Executive Producer.
And the executives in charge of APM Studios are Chandra Kavati and Joanne Griffith.
Special thanks to Natalie Garcia. Oh K Zinnia, are you ready to hear the answers to First Things First?
You bet, you bet ya.
All right. So as a reminder, we're putting these three ball shaped things in order.
And you said marbles, snow globes, and then ball pits, right?
Yeah, I did. All right.
Well, let's see the answers.
Let's see where they go.
Oh my gosh, you got it right.
I did? You did, you were right.
I never get them right.
Today's a special day.
Yay! Marble -like games have been played for thousands of years.
Small clay marbles have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs, and there's evidence they were popular in ancient Greece and Rome too.
The earliest book on marbles was published in 1815 in England.
This book listed marbles as being made of China, clay, glass or even real marble at the time.
Glass marbles, which are most popular today, became common starting in the mid -1800s.
So you're absolutely right with the glass technique.
A strategy like going at it.
It's interesting that they were used to be made of clay though.
Yeah, I feel like that was like it's just like different.
than what I'm used to.
So next up is snow globes, and those were invented in 1878.
So the first documented appearance of snow globes was at an exposition in Paris in 1878.
They were billed as paperweights with a man holding an umbrella, and when you flip the ball, it looks like he's in a fake snow storm.
Oh, wow. Yeah. The first official patent for a snow globe was given to an inventor who was actually trying to improve a tool that would focus light during surgery.
Whoa! But his snow globes were so successful, that he started a snow globe company, and it's still in business today.
When did they start doing Christmas ones?
Like with the snow and stuff in them?
That's all I think of in I think of snow globes, you know?
Yeah... Snowman Snow.
Christmas trees. Yeah, yeah.
That's a snow globe.
With like a little polar bear in the middle.
And last but certainly not least, is ball pits!
and that was invented in 1971 so the international furniture store ikea likely had the first ever ball pit have you been to ikea before yeah i feel like i have i think so yeah that furniture store yeah it opened at the children's play area in their store in stockholm sweden in 1971 the designers were inspired when they opened a box that contained a new type of protective packing material, small plastic balls, kind of like styrofoam packing peanuts.
And they imagined what it would be like to swim around in there and voila, the ball pit was born.
They had a play area?
Yeah, yeah, so the IKEA must had an area for folks to go play around it.
I mean, I guess it's also for adults because adults can go sit on furniture.
So everyone's playing.
That's cool. I would love to jump into a pit of those packing peanuts.
Yeah. It is so squishy and fun.
Yeah. Was there anything in these last three that surprised you?
Probably the second one with the snow globe that he was trying to like invent a tool or like improve a tool that they use for like surgery, like for the light, and then he ended up making a snow globe.
That was so wild. Right?
Yeah. And who, you know, there's always these like happy accidents that happen sometime when you're trying to do something and then you actually invent something else.
Yeah. I'm going to start inventing something.
I'm going to say my peanut packing ball pit.
We'll be back next week with an episode all about the famous dancer and entertainer Josephine Baker.
Thanks for listening.
R Follow me! What is this place?
These are the lava tunnels.
I am not fireproof!
