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Naismith's Rules for Basketball should draw frenzy...
(https://chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=238210)
Naismith's Rules for Basketball should draw frenzy...
Naismith’s rules for basketball should draw frenzy By J. BRADY McCOLLOUGH The Kansas City Star http://media.kansascity.com/smedia/2...filiate.81.jpg BEBETO MATTHEWS One of two pages used by James Naismith to write the first basketball rules is shown during an auction preview at Sotheby's in New York on Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010. The two pages will be auctioned off Dec. 10 and are expected to go for millions of dollars with the proceeds to go to a charity that promotes sportsmanship. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) http://media.kansascity.com/smedia/2...filiate.81.jpg http://media.kansascity.com/smedia/2...filiate.81.jpg http://media.kansascity.com/smedia/2...filiate.81.jpg http://media.kansascity.com/smedia/2...filiate.81.jpg http://media.kansascity.com/smedia/2...filiate.81.jpg NEW YORK | The staff of world-famous Sotheby’s is preparing for today’s auction, and, as is the custom here on the Upper East Side, the sell is on. Three items will be up for grabs. The expectation is that millions of dollars will change hands. With so much at stake, presentation is everything. The first item you see when taking the escalator to the second floor, where the exhibition begins, is not the battle flag found in the pocket of a dead soldier at the Battle of Little Bighorn, which raged across the plains of Montana in 1876. And it is not one of the 20 original copies of the Emancipation Proclamation that President Abraham Lincoln signed in 1863, a document that would later be owned by U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. No, for this auction, the main attractions are the two prominently displayed yellowed sheets of paper that spell out James Naismith’s original rules of basketball, typewritten by Naismith’s secretary in 1891 to be hung in the gym of the YMCA Training College in Springfield, Mass. Now they hang in protective glass frames with a price tag estimated at a low of $2 million. “Usually when we sell something, we set a low and a high estimate,” said Selby Kiffer, the senior vice president for special projects at Sotheby’s. “Most of our estimates are based on previous experience with similar documents. One reason we left the upper limit undefined is we really haven’t handled anything like this before.” Kiffer has been working at Sotheby’s for 26 years. The last time he treated an item in this way? “When we sold a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton,” Kiffer said, “which was the biggest and most complete ever found.” T-rex’s massive bones helped explain the evolution of the entire planet, and Sotheby’s low estimate was set at $1 million. The Field Museum in Chicago bought it for $7.4 million. Naismith’s rules help to explain the simple origin of a game that has stolen countless hearts and imaginations across the globe, and there’s no telling the sum such a joyous manuscript could garner. “We’ve had responses from all over the world,” said Ian Naismith, James Naismith’s grandson. “It’s amazing.” Ian Naismith will be in New York today to see the rules that have been with his family for 119 years find a new home. He has the most invested in the process, which will involve bids coming in person, by phone and from the Internet. The winning bid will benefit the Naismith International Basketball Foundation, which is run by Ian Naismith and serves underprivileged children. The foundation has fallen on tough times in line with the economy, forcing Ian Naismith to approach Sotheby’s. Ian Naismith says that in the past he was offered as much as $5 million to $10 million for his grandfather’s 13 rules, which resided in Lawrence for 41 years following James Naismith’s arrival in 1898, when he joined the KU faculty and became the Jayhawks’ first basketball coach. Naismith retired in 1937 and died in 1939. Naismith’s rules were built around four fundamental principles: no running with the ball, no tackling or rough body contact, a horizontal goal above the heads of the players and freedom of any player to obtain the ball and score at any time. “The genius,” Kiffer said, “is the rules were elastic enough that the game could develop around them.” Today, it will be the job of David Redden, Sotheby’s top auctioneer, to explain Naismith’s genius and the significance of the rules to potential buyers. For a frame of reference, Redden was in London this week auctioning medieval manuscripts. Thing is, the Naismith auction should be more intriguing. “Somebody who might find a Thomas Jefferson letter or an Einstein manuscript sort of boring can get sort of interested in this,” Kiffer said. “I think the world of bidders for something like this could be enormous. “Really, I don’t know who it might be. Could be a player. Could be a team owner. Could be a frustrated player who wanted to be a star and never made it but made it in business. It will be fun.” As Kiffer is saying this, a frequent buyer walks up to the Naismith display, which stands tall around a small hardwood replica of a basketball court. “By definition, it is unique,” the buyer said. But it is out of his price range. “Shaq could buy it and not even think about it, right?” he joked. A man like Shaquille O’Neal may have the funds, but there’s no way that he could want the rules as badly as Josh Swade, a 36-year-old New York resident who grew up in Overland Park and attended KU for a few years. Swade is in the TV industry, and being a Jayhawk, he came up with an idea when he heard about the auctioning of the rules. He went to his bosses and wanted to make a documentary about basketball’s impact on the world with an eye on helping to bring the rules back to Lawrence for good in the Booth Family Hall of Athletics, which is adjacent to Allen Fieldhouse on Naismith Drive. Swade started a website — bringtheruleshome.com — and has traveled the country for the past month interviewing former KU coaches and players, among others. After all of it, Swade believes that the group of interested parties he has assembled will be a player today. “It’s gonna come down to crunch time,” Swade said. “Those rules belong in Lawrence, Kansas. To me, it’s a no-brainer. I think Dr. Naismith would want them to be in Lawrence. He’s buried there." And it was there that James Naismith sat down with his son, Jimmy, over breakfast at the family’s Massachusetts Street home in 1931 and decided to authenticate the rules he’d carried with him for 40 years. Even then, they realized the rules would be worth a large chunk of cash someday. It pains Swade to think of the rules ending up somewhere else, but especially outside the country. “You hear of these wealthy folks in places like Italy, Russia and Lithuania,” Swade said. “I can’t begin to talk about them. They belong in the United States, on display.” Ultimately, though, this is Ian Naismith’s decision, and he can live with whatever happens. His hope is that the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., will win the bidding. If not, he accepts that the love for the game his grandfather created is strong enough to take the rules anywhere. “Basketball is played in over 230 countries,” Ian Naismith said. “It’s a world game. That’s how we’ve always looked at it as a family.” Edit: A video from Sotheby's: http://www.sothebys.com/video/privat...735/index.html http://www.kansascity.com/2010/12/09...#ixzz17iE09wow |
Sold today for $4,338,500. Buyer hasn't been disclosed on the Sotheby's site.
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:grovel: |
That should be in Allen Fieldhouse.
sorta like a "Decleration of Independence" document |
Wow. That's more than Kobe Bryant makes in a whole month.
Personally, I'd rather have the Emancipation Proclamation copy or the Little Big Horn battle flag. And I'd definitely prefer the full T-Rex skeleton, though I'd have a hard time displaying it in my house. |
Quick, someone change it to make the game more exciting! :D
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I would rather have a copy of the orginal lyrics of Bang a gong by T-rex
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I'm always interested in these historical auctions, because I can never predict the prices. Stuff that's interesting but not amazing to me will go for millions, and stuff that I think is great will go for a pittance. (Pittance being $50,000 or something.) |
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Flag: $2,210,500 |
It's times like this that I wish I were a contract killer or something equally wealth-inducing.
You could not put a pricetag on the sheer joy of torching those things outside of Allen Fieldhouse then pissing in the kettle. |
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Interesting. I would've guessed $5 million for the EP and probably $20,000 for the flag. The basketball rules would've probably been $1 million in my guess. |
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Seriously - "sorta like a Declaration of Independence..."? |
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The hell we're claiming him.
He's the Philip Nolan of ChiefsPlanet... |
MU knows no sentimental value of KU or material relating to KU has. Being uneducated in this fashion sets you apart from the KU world . :D :KU:
Don't get your panties in a wad over this comment, you always have the Page Arena to be proud of !;) |
4 million :eek:
holy shite |
Am I reading it wrong? Seems to me they were created elsewhere and then brought to ku and then he became their first coach. How ddoes it belong there? Were the rules written in ku or elsewhere?
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Great news! The "birth certificate" of college hoops will be on display in Allen Fieldhouse, as they should be.
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I presume you're trying to say that we cannot understand KU's attachment to this document as we have nothing similar to hang our hats on. If that's the case - you pretty much suck at saying it. But alas, you are correct. Try as I might, I've yet to find something MU related that I would equate to, say, the Magna Carta or perhaps the Declaration of the Rights of Man. I suppose you have me on that one. So tell me, is the blueprint for Fraser Hall kinda like the Constitution? |
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OK, I bombed out on the joke, it appeared you took as face value ? :rolleyes: |
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But I assure you, CoMo and the like were not. Because you're right - all things related to KU pretty much are self-centered, egotistical and 'bout anything else I'd want to add... Though in fairness, I wouldn't actually burn the things. I'd just keep them on display in the nuclear reactor at MU. It'd be kind of fun to see if I could get those suckers to glow in the dark. |
http://www2.kusports.com/news/2010/d...medium=ljtweet
Booths purchase original Naismith basketball rules at auction for more than $4 million, according to Sotheby’s By The Associated Press New York City — A historic document that details the original rules of basketball, written 119 years ago as a winter sport for boys of a Massachusetts YMCA, was sold for more than $4 million on Friday to raise money for charity. It was purchased by David and Suzanne Booth, who hope to bring the rules to Kansas University. He is an alumnus. James Naismith wrote the 13 rules while a physical education instructor at the Christian association. “Basketball is a pure invention,” said Selby Kiffer, senior specialist in American history documents at Sotheby’s, where the rules were being sold by the Naismith International Basketball Foundation. “It’s really the genesis, the birth certificate of one of the world’s most popular sports,” he said in October when the sale was announced. “It’s a sport that has had an impact on everything from fashion, such as sneakers, to culture that in a way transcends sports. The sale price of $4.3 million includes a buyer’s premium. The proceeds will benefit the Naismith foundation, which promotes sportsmanship and provides services to underprivileged children around the world. Ian Naismith, the foundation’s founder and grandson of James Naismith, told The Associated Press in an interview in October that it was a family decision to put the rules on the auction block and give the money to the Naismith charity. “It’s what Dr. Naismith wanted,” he said. James Naismith penned the 13 rules on Dec. 21, 1891, for the YMCA training school in Springfield. His boss had given him two weeks to come up with a new indoor activity for his gym class, and he wrote down the rules on the eve of that deadline. He gave the list to his secretary, who typed them up on two pages that Naismith pinned on a bulletin board outside the gym. He moved to Lawrence, Kan., in 1898 and became the first basketball coach at Kansas University. He coached for nine seasons before assuming other academic duties and serving as athletics director. One of his players was Forrest “Phog” Allen, who went on to become popularly known as the “father of basketball coaches.” The two are memorialized on the KU campus, where the basketball court at Allen Fieldhouse is named James Naismith Court. Naismith died in 1939, three years after his new game became an official sport at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. |
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Man, you guys are odd. |
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Rock Chalk. As it should be. |
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Thats cool that they are coming back to Lawrence.
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Go light another J for your dead homie Lennon. I regret that he had but one life to give for his cause... |
Wrong thread for a fight.
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Excellent! I'm glad KU alums ponied up the big bucks!
As far as Springfield, MA is concerned, yes, it was an idea there. It didn't really explode until later when Dr. Naismith was at KU. If you read the article, it wasn't until 1931 that he realized what he had in this document. It would be like Albuquerque laying claim to Microsoft because the first inclination was there. Albuquerque is in the notes but not the focus. |
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Oh wait... |
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Nice ! |
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"If your candle is so dim, blow out all others in vengeance..." |
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Wow the butt hurt is strong in this thread....
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I think next to the Basketball Hall of Fame, KU is as good a place as any for the papers to rest. No, we don't have the most wins or championships. But some very long and serious blood lines can be traced back to Lawrence.
THe game was invented in Springfield, MA but it's practically a religion in Lawrence, KS to a point that's maybe matched in a few other places, but certainly not topped. Thank goodness for the Booth Family! |
Too bad Naismith didn't actually invent basketball.
I bet you believe Edison invented the light bulb too. |
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You're a moron. |
Upon taking possession of the document, the Booths were shocked to see a 14th and final rule on the back of the second page.
14. No blacks |
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As a Mizzou fan, props to KU and the Booth alums to pull this off. When I heard of this story some time ago I was hoping that the KU alums would pull this off.
No other school has as many ties / blood lines to basketball than Kansas, also being since this is where Dr. Naismith lived, coached and now rests, it is only fitting...Its also nice to see these in the midwest instead of in some security deposit box of some Russian billionaire. |
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http://boxscorenews.com/who-really-i...menu=79&mad=No http://boxscorenews.com/basketballs-...y-p9803-68.htm |
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There's the proof, fellas - an article written by some random person online who was related to someone who claims to have invented basketball. You guys are reaching new levels of jealousy, seriously. |
If you read the history of basketball you know that this has been discredited.
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Great move by my fellow Lawrence High grad.
This is the same guy who gave $300 million to the Univ of Chicago. I heard the largest donation ever given to a business school. I guess this is KU's T Boone Pickens |
Yea, $300m for the Booth School Of Business. Quite a philanthropic gift.
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I had this sick vision yesterday before the auction that some MUron booster like Laurie or something would outbid a KU booster... then burn it before a MU/KU homegame or something.
heh |
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