Handball

Era · United States

One-wall rises in New York (1915-1922)

1915-1922 · One-wall (small and big ball)

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Between the first outdoor single-wall tournament match found (Van Kelton Field, next to the West Side Y.M.C.A., April 1915) and the A.A.U.'s adoption of one-wall rules on 20 November 1922, the one-wall game acquired a name ('American handball', distinct from 'Irish (four wall) handball', Sun 1916), a book (Brokaw's 'How to Play American Hand Ball', copyright 1915, with a 20 x 26 ft floor and a 13-ft service line), and finally a federation code (20 x 34 ft, 16-ft wall, short line at least 13 ft) that the A.A.U. drafted by adapting its four-wall text rather than Brokaw's (H-62 supported, H-50 supported).

The take

The one-wall game was not invented by a book: it was a playground and Y.M.C.A. game that a publisher named and a federation codified. The federation then wrote its rules by copying its own four-wall code, which is why one-wall and four-wall handball have shared a vocabulary ever since and why Brokaw's 'American hand ball' survives only in the numbers (20 ft, 13 ft).

Moments in order

6 moments. Each shows its status in words and its source.

  1. by 26 April 1915 · Documented

    Outdoor single-wall tournament handball with gloves at the Van Kelton Field, New York: Staddleberger beats Verstraten (H-97). Courts are 'indoors, on roofs and even in vacant lots'.

    Source: The Evening World (New York), 26 April 1915, p. 12. Also: The Evening World (New York), 22 November 1915, p. 16

  2. 18 December 1915 · Documented

    Brokaw's 'How to Play American Hand Ball' is deposited for copyright (Rules of American Hand Ball (1916), H-16 supported): 55 rules, a board 20 ft wide and 10 ft high, floor 20 x 26 ft, service line midway at 13 ft, gloves compulsory, no volleying the serve.

    Source: James I. Brokaw, How to Play American Hand Ball (1915), pp. 39-43

    Read the rulebook: Rules of American Hand Ball

  3. 9 August 1916 · Documented

    The Sun's query column: 'Most of the American handball courts are 60 feet by 40 feet, with 26 foot side lines and 20 foot front lines ... 13 feet from service line to board ... Don't confuse American handball with Irish (four wall) handball' (1916 newspaper notes; not yet a dated fact).

    Source: The Sun (New York), 9 August 1916, p. 11

  4. 20 November 1922 · Documented

    The A.A.U. adopts one-wall rules at its annual meeting (A.A.U. One-Wall Rules (1922), printed in Spalding's Official Handball Guide 1923): court about 20 x 34 ft, wall 16 ft, short line at least 13 ft, two faults, standard rubber ball. The text is the four-wall text of 1922 adapted (18 of 35 rules score 0.80 or better, H-62), not Brokaw's (H-50).

    Source: Robert L. Ripley (ed.), Spalding's Official Handball Guide (1923), p. 75

    Read the rulebook: A.A.U. One-Wall Rules

  5. 1923 · Documented

    Ripley's 'Suggested Rule Changes' (Suggested Rule Changes) already ask the four-wall game to borrow one-wall practice (H-65); whether any were adopted in 1924-28 is unknown (H-18).

    Source: Robert L. Ripley (ed.), Spalding's Official Handball Guide (1923)

  6. June 1900 · Documented

    Before the era: the Y.M.C.A.'s rules for a single-wall court, approved by its Physical Directors' Conference in 1898 and revised at Thousand Island Park in June 1900, printed in the Athletic League handbooks from 1904 and revised again for 1913 (Hand Ball Rules (1900), Hand Ball Rules: Single Wall Court (1913); H-136, H-139). A gymnasium one-wall code fifteen years older than Brokaw's; the era's start stays at the first tournament report (rubric tie-breaker 2: printed rules are 3).

    Source: Athletic League of the Young Men's Christian Associations of Canada, Official Handbook (1904), pp. 79-81. Also: Athletic League of the Young Men's Christian Associations of North America, Official Handbook (1913), p. 119

    Read the rulebooks: Hand Ball Rules; Hand Ball Rules: Single Wall Court

What the sources do not show

  • The 1910s facts are imported (H1b); 1917-1918 were swept thinly and the Brooklyn Eagle, the paper of the one-wall boroughs, is unread.
  • No newspaper names Brokaw or his book; how his 1915 numbers reached the Sun's 1916 column is unknown (H-51).
  • The A.A.U. minutes of 20 Nov 1922 and the identity of the one-wall drafters are unknown; whether they knew the Y.M.C.A.'s single-wall rules (1900, 1913) is untested.
  • The one-wall game between 1923 and the 1949 A.A.U. printing is documented only by the 1927-28 and 1931 texts (One-Wall Playing Rules (in Spalding's Official Handball Guide, 1928) (1927), A.A.U. One-Wall Rules (in Charles J. O'Connell, How to Play Handball, 1931) (1931)) and the Y.M.C.A.'s 1929 leaflet; no results, courts or players.
  • Open-sided play before 1915: the Sun's 1889 rule for courts 'with boundary lines drawn, and no side walls' (H-105) and the Y.M.C.A.'s single-wall court code of 1898-1900 show the form existed; whether New York's playground game descends from either has not been looked for.

Threads that run through this era

Neighboring eras in the United States

Rulebooks cited here

Sources