CHILDREN’S GAMES AS SPORTS—DODGEBALL. Andrew Beaton had an article in the Wall Street Journal (August 8) about the preeminent professional dodgeball player, Vince Marchbanks, whose team has won about $100,000 in cash prizes in the last two years. There are 528 teams that have entered the 2014 Ultimate Dodgeball Championship tournament.The tournament games are played on trampolines. An appealing thing about playing on trampolines is that, like so many other sports, it was invented by children. Says the chief executive of an operator of trampoline parks: “One day children decided we’re going to bring a ball in and start throwing it at each other.”
Beaton mentions other sporting events that have arisen from children’s games: the sixth annual World Thumb Wrestling Championship, the International Tree Climbing Championship, and two different national kickball tournaments.