The various Indian groups throughout the Americas all had ballgames that they played. But it wasn’t something you’d see anybody shaking hands at.
These were essentially war games. When the Franciscans came to Florida and established missions in the late 16th century, one of their first points of conflict with the Indians was over the ballgames, because the games usually ended up leaving many young men lying dead on the field. The “games” were followed by mourning.
The Franciscans, like the Dominicans and Jesuits before them, wanted to put a stop to the games because of the large numbers of players killed during them, and they were eventually successful.
So American baseball has come a long way.
I actually knew the history of that. It was just a little joke.
Thanks for the info though.
I hear that those Dominicans had great hands.
The modern version of it is called “Latin American Soccer”.