In George T. Hepbron’s “How To Play Basket Ball,” published in 1904 by the American Sports Publishing Co., then at 21 Warren Street in New York City, there’s a delightful segment about how one is to set up a “basket ball” court.

In “The Grounds,” Hepbron, then the secretary of the Amateur Athletic Union Basket Ball Committee and the editor of its Official Basket Ball Guide (and now enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame), was making an early attempt to standardize the “field of play” for the still relatively new sport.

THE GROUNDS

Official Jock Strap Of Basket Ball, 1904.

These are the gymnasium floor cleared of apparatus, though any building of this nature would suit. If there is a gallery or running track around the building the baskets may be hung up on this, one at each end, and the bounds marked out on the floor beneath this gallery. The apparatus may be stored away behind this line and thus be out of the field of play.

If there is no gallery, the baskets may be hung on the wall, one at each end. In an open field a couple of posts may be set up with baskets on top, and set at the most convenient distance.

Out of doors, with plenty of room, the fields may be 150 feet long, the goal-lines running through the baskets perpendicular to the length of the field; the side boundaries 100 feet apart, the ball must be passed into the field when outside these lines.

At a picnic the baskets may be hung on a couple of trees and the game carried on as usual.

But Hepbron also had ulterior motives. The American Sports Publishing Co. was affiliated with the sporting goods powerhouse A. G. Spalding & Bros., and “How To Play Basket Ball” was published as one of a collection of instructional sports books in series marketed as “Spalding’s Athletic Library.”

Spalding’s Athletic Library is admitted to be the leading library series of its kind published in the world. In fact, it has no imitators, let alone equals. It occupies a field that it has created for itself.

There were similar guies for base ball, foot ball, cricket, golf, bowling, roller polo, ice hockey, lawn tennis, archery, curling, track and field, fencing, boxing, wrestling, jiu jitsu, volley ball, body building, and more.

These books contained a continual stream of advertisements and catalog pages promoting every article of gear that one would ever need in order to participate in the corresponding sport.

Spalding very clearly dominated the athletic supply industry at the time. Because of their close association with the A.A.U., Spalding’s products were adopted by the A.A.U. as being the “Official” products of the game itself.

Thus, even the rulebook was known as Spalding’s Official Rules for Basket Ball.

It is not allowed to carry, kick or hold the ball, or to tackle, hold or push an opponent. These are Class A fouls. When a player strikes, or kicks, or shoulders, or is rough, or trips an opponent, it is a foul, and the player who resorts to this kind of play may on the first and shall on the second offence [sic.] be excluded from the game. These are Class B fouls.

Even the jock straps were official.

No player should play without a supporter. This advice is not heeded by some who have not learned the above by serious experience. Many a game is lost by the best player being injured and withdraw from the game because the above advice has not been heeded.

The No. 5 “Bike” Supporter has been conceded by all as the “only” jockey strap suspensory. It is clean, comfortable, and porous and is made in three sizes. The price is 75 cents.

Two other well known suspensories are the Spalding which sells from 25 cents to $1.25, according to material used, and the Old Point Comfort, at $1.00 to $1.50, depending on the material also.

Today, Spalding has the right to call its basketball the “Official Game Ball Of The NBA,” having purchased that expensive right from the National Basketball Association.

But, at one point, Spalding’s basketball was the official ball of the sport … the whole sport. In other words, it was the “Official Ball Of Basketball.

Spalding could probably have saved a lot of marketing dollars over the years by simply changing their high-priced designation back to what it once was, a half-joking suggestion I once made to some of their senior executives.

They didn’t do that, obviously, and still haven’t. Admittedly, there would be quite a few downsides to doing so.

But I’m sure they must have thought it over, considering how expensive the N.B.A. marketing partnerships were back then and still are today.

And the headaches.

As Spalding subsequently learned, in the debacle that involved the N.B.A. switching the game ball from leather to synthetic and then back again in mid-season — which 2-time league M.V.P. Steve Nash called a “comedy of errors” — there are downsides to being the “Official Game Ball of the NBA” too.

I’m not picking on Spalding. I admire and respect their people, their brand, and their products.

I just think it’s remarkable, and even fascinating how their dominance over the sporting goods industry vanished so completely.

Somewhere along the way, Spalding had their jock handed to them, I guess.