Small Balls

In Class, Paul Fussell notes off-handedly that sports favored by the aristocracy tend to be played with small balls, whereas proletarian sports are played with large balls. Thus, tennis and golf and polo for the rich; basketball and soccer and football for everyone else.

While he doesn’t explain this, I would note that in sports played with small balls, the ball is rarely touched directly. The ball is hit, rather, with a racket or a club. When the ball is large, it is held directly.

When the ball is held directly, the players tend to touch each other. When the ball isn’t held directly, the players usually don’t touch.

Sports wherein there is direct contact are mainly the domain of the young. Old people can play sports with small balls because they are less violent, exhausting.

Sports that are dominated by the young never accrue the dignity of sports played by the elderly.

Baseball fits a little awkwardly into the middle of this argument. While a baseball is small, and the sport itself is common (and not favored by aristocrats), baseball involves very little direct contact and can thus be played (professionally) for far longer than basketball, football, hockey, or soccer.