The Story of Tennis  in three-parts

 Part 1 The Tennis Racket
1. French monks of the 13th century played a version of modern-day tennis in the confines of their monestary courtyard. They whacked the ball with an open hand, thereby calling it jeu de paune, or "Game of the Palm."
2. The clerics spent so much time playing the game that the Archbishop of Rouen banned it in A.D. 1245.
3. The tennis racket evolved slowly. At first players wore bloves. Then they wound leather cords around the fingers.
4. For a while they used a paddle until someone wrapped parchent around a frame. Unfortunately....
5. Manuscripts began disappearing from libraries and showing up on tennis rackets.
6. Around A.D. 1500 the players bagan to run strands of sheep gut diagonally across the frame.
7. The game spread across the English Channel where the British started calling it
TENNIS, an English spin-of of the term TENEZ, meaning "hold" or "take" which the server yelled when he was about to hit the ball to his opponent.
8. William Shakespeare mentioned tennis in his play Henry V. King Henry V ruled Great Britain 1413 - 1422, and was an avid player.
9. King Henry VIII loved the game so much that heinstalled a tennis court at Hampton Court Palace in the late 1520s which is still there today.


 Part 2 The Opening Serve
1. Mary Ewing Outerbridge has the distinction of introducing tennis tothe United States in 1874
She had played the game while on vacation in Bermuda that previous January and returned home to Staten Island, New York with rackets, balls, and nets.
2. Mary's brother Emilio set up a tennis court at the Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club. That site is now a parking lot for the Staten Island Ferry.
Regarded as the Mother of Tennis, Mary died in 1886 at the age of 34.
3. An avid sportsman, President Theodore Roosevelt had a tennis court built on the south side of the west wing of the White House around 1902.
Teddy had a unique way to hold his racket.


 Part 3 The Tennis Cabinet
1. (left side) President Theodore Roosevelt installed the first tennis court at the White House.
Playing alongside Roosevelt were officials high and low, eager undersecretaries, and foreign diplomats.
Teddy's tennis buddies were called The Tennis Cabinet.
There were more than 30 players during his administration including:
Henry Stimson, U.S. Attorney for southern New York; later he was the Secretary of State under President Herbert Hoover, and Secretary of War during World War II.
2. (in circle) The president often invited celebrities to play, such as...
William "Pudge" Heffelfinger, a noted stockbroker who, as a Yale guard, made the first All-American football roster and, in 1892, was the first to get paid to play football.
One of Theodore's favorite sporting diplomats was the french ambassador Jules Jusserand.
The son of a former predident, James R. Garfield was a Civil Service commissioner and later TR's Secretary of the Interior. Garfield was the last survivor of Theodore Roosevelt's administration when he died in 1950.
3. (right side) A staunch conservationist, Gifford Pinchot headed the U.S. Bureau of Forestry for Presidents McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. He went on to serve as the governor of Pennsylvania twice, 1923-26 and 1931-34.


For into about tennis at the White House, we recommend...

 
 The Games Presidents Play Sports and the Presidency by James Sayle Watterson
Looking at the athletic strengths, feats, and shortcomings of our presidents, John Watterson explores not only their health, physical attributes, pesonalities, and sports IQ., but also the increasing trend of Americans in the past century to equate sporting achievements with courage, manliness, and political competence. Find out how good horsemanship played a critical role in getting elected to high office.
6" x 9" 402 pages, index, illustrated, hardbound
#497 Games Presidents Play $29.95

 

 
Flashbacks Volume One
  A Cartoon of the District of Columbia
Patrick M. Reynolds
brings history to life with a sense of humor. His exciting drawings put you on the scene with the conflicts, madness, plus the wheeling and dealing that resulted in the location and construction of the U.S. capital city, despite all the bickering, petty jealousies, and down-right stupidity. This volume is almost out of print, hence the higher price.
11¾" x 7½" 106 pages, full color illustrations, index,
paperbound
ISBN 0-932514-31-6
#F1 Cartoon History of DC $25.00 Order Flashbacks Vol. One
   Flashbacks Volume Two
DC Neighborhoods
Flashbacks Vol. Two Artist-writer Patrick M. Reynolds takes you to the Washington that tourists seldom see The U.S. capital expanded with the growth of public transportation into such areas as Shepard Park, Takoma Park, Chevy Chase, Kalorama, Dupont Circle, Adams Morgan, Capital Hill, LeDroit Park, Tenleytown, Brookland, and others. Stories in this book go back to the explorations of Capt. John Smith in the 1600s and the Indian Wars of early Virginia, continuing into the 20th century with the introduction of the cherry trees to Washington and the end of segregation in public schools.
11¾" x 7½" 106 pages, full color illustrations, index, paperbound ISBN 0-932514-33-2
#F2 Cartoon History of DC $14.95

Previous weeks' stories and references:
Animals...Atomic Bomb....Arlington National Cemetery...Aviation History....Black History....Black Basketball in Washington...National Archives...Children...Constitution-How & Why we got it...Civil War... Autocamping...American Presidency...Auto Racing...Baseball History...the Bible & the Presidency...Blizzard of 1888...Bubble Houses...Chinese...Combat Artists...The CCCs Civilian Conservation Corps...Declaration of Independence...DC Neighborhoods...The Ghost Army of WWII... Artists in War The Limb Maker...Duke Ellington...Ferries Across the Chessie .. Food History,,, HOLIDAYS...German Americans...Italian Americans...The Italian Crisis...
Ninian Beall Sequence.....UFOs Over Washington... Culpeper of Virginia...The Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918...Indians of the Eastern Shore of MD & VA... Pirates on the Chesapeake...Chesapeake Beach...Quiltmaking...Chesapeake Bay Stories...Ghost stories... Maryland History...Movie History ...Music History...Naval History (Seebees, Armed Guard, etc)...Rock & Roll History...Hoover Airport....Robert Smalls....Slavery...Swampoodle...Sports...Origins of Words & Phrases...Inventions...Railroads...Treaty of Paris...Virginia History...Washington, DC History...Nazis in America...Wilkes Expedition...Stamps...Women...Girl Scouts...V-Mail...Word Origins...Saint Brendan

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