where was fieldball first played in the us
Kickball Published in April 1922, Daniel Chase; Supervisor of Physical Education for the New York State Department of Education, describes the earliest known account of adults playing kickball. This game took place at a conference of rural teachers in Mooers Forks, Clinton County, NY where Daniel was teaching games that the teachers could in turn teach to their pupils. They did not have a ball, so they made one out of an old stocking and some rags. The ball was about 7 to 8 inches long and tied off with an old shoelace. The construction of this makeshift ball was demonstrated to the rural teachers by Mr. Braddock Wells. The teachers were assigned numbers to create teams; odd numbers on one team and even numbers on the other. The team captains chose college names to represent each team name. The odds chose Yale & the evens chose Princeton. The game of "Kick Baseball" was the last game they played at the conference to decide the championship for the day. 10 players were chosen for each team and the remaining were organized into a cheering section. Yale kicked first. On the field there was no pitcher, but an extra short-stop between first and second. Only three innings were completed in the heat that day, with Yale ending up as the victor winning 3 to 2. The cheering sections showed great sportsmanship, applauding all good plays impartially.[8]
Artificial turf In 2002, CenturyLink Field, originally planned to have a natural grass field, was instead surfaced with FieldTurf upon positive reaction from the Seattle Seahawks when they played on the surface at their temporary home of Husky Stadium during the 2000 and 2001 seasons. This would be the first of a leaguewide trend taking place over the next several seasons that would not only result in teams already using artificial surfaces for their fields switching to the new FieldTurf or other similar surfaces but would also see several teams playing on grass adopt a new surface. (The Indianapolis Colts' RCA Dome and the St. Louis Rams' Edward Jones Dome were the last two stadiums in the NFL to replace their first-generation AstroTurf surfaces for next-generation ones after the 2004 season). For example, after a three-year experiment with a natural surface, Giants Stadium went to FieldTurf for 2003, while M&T Bank Stadium added its own artificial surface the same year (it has since been removed and replaced with a natural surface, which the stadium had before installing the turf). Later examples include Paul Brown Stadium, which went from grass to turf in 2004; Gillette Stadium, which made the switch in 2006;[6] and NRG Stadium, which did so in 2015. Today, 12 NFL fields out of 31 are artificial.