Weirdest plausible sports

[Expat]

George Carlin used to have a great way of describing sports to make them seem weird. "Tennis is just a form of ping pong. In fact, tennis is ping pong played while standing on the table."

Wasn't there a timeline on the board that had a non-carcass version of buzkashi make its way to the American Midwest as a cowboy sport?

Also, Rollerjam wasn't rollerball, it was a slick version of roller derby. And if you don't know roller derby, you're missing out on probably the most entertaining facet of modern feminism, hands down.

 

[Simreeve]

Has anybody else here read Jasper Fforde's 'Thursday Next' series? It's set in an alternative reality where, amongst other differences from OTL, the really BIG sport in England is Croquet... but it's a version of croquet played four-a-side, with protective clothing, with rules so complex that each side has to field not only a team of players but also a team (with substitutions allowed) of lawyers...
We actually see one top-level game, its year's 'Superhoop' in fact, being played.

 

[Mongo]

As for weirdest plausible sports, how about Puppy Football? It's exactly what it sounds like, BTW.

Not exactly. This sport consists of a bunch of puppies playing American football. I had originally thought of American football using a puppy in place of the ball. (Just be glad it's not Puppy Soccer!) Maybe it's just me.

Interestingly enough, baseball is actually derived from rounders- which, over here in Britain, is considered an extremely boring 'soft sport', only played at school by girls- and those little girls don't even wear pads, unlike they do in Baseball.

It appears that it's actually the other way around, rounders is derived from baseball. The first known accounts of rounders were written long after the first mentions of early baseball games in the UK. It's basically a simplified, less physically demanding variant of an early form of baseball, intended to be played by children (as opposed to early baseball, which was often played by adults), that has continued to be played in the UK after baseball itself had mostly died out there.

 

[SunDeep]

It appears that it's actually the other way around, rounders is derived from baseball. The first known accounts of rounders were written long after the first mentions of early baseball games in the UK. It's basically a simplified, less physically demanding variant of an early form of baseball, intended to be played by children (as opposed to early baseball, which was often played by adults), that continued to be played in the UK after baseball itself had mostly died out there.

Ah. That makes sense then...

 

[mrmandias]

I read that in medieval france they tied a cat to a pole and the contestant then tried to headbutt it to death. The object of the game was to kill the cat before it scratched your eyes out.

 

[Valena]

It appears that it's actually the other way around, rounders is derived from baseball. The first known accounts of rounders were written long after the first mentions of early baseball games in the UK. It's basically a simplified, less physically demanding variant of an early form of baseball, intended to be played by children (as opposed to early baseball, which was often played by adults), that has continued to be played in the UK after baseball itself had mostly died out there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_baseball
This article is not that clear-cut about "chicken-or-egg" thing with rounders and baseball, and implies that at some time rounders was THE name for British baseball.

 

[Bee]

I read that in medieval france they tied a cat to a pole and the contestant then tried to headbutt it to death. The object of the game was to kill the cat before it scratched your eyes out.

!

Somewhat similarly, during the Hundred Years War, when the English were in possession of Paris, they invented an entertainment there consisting of putting five (or maybe six) blind men and a pig in an enclosed area. The object for each of the blind men was to hit the pig with a stick. This tasteful exercise was apparently discontinued after the French regained the city.

 

[TheYoungPretender]

The most dangerous game...

Jai Alai, maybe? It had a surge of real popularity from 1950s to the early 1980s in America. What if it had gone big?

 

[PulkitNahata]

Beer Pong goes completely professional with teams popping up across the USA, Germany, Australia, the UK etc. Later beer is replaced with water or any non alcoholic drink when the sport catches on in the Middle-East. Soon there would be a Pong World Championship and later it becomes a sport in the Olympics.