All Cardinals infield, maybe – archery, sure – but cager???

When I talk to people about my columns certain comments are expected. They may have questions, they may have kudos and they may even have a critique or two. Most of the comments I see coming, but then there was this past week.In last week's column I gave my readers a chance to play sports trivia. Most of the questions had answers that I figured many people would know. A few were harder and I felt people might not know those answers. My headline suggests that two of the answers would perhaps not be forthcoming.I asked if you could name the National League's starting infield from the 1963 All-Star team. It was unique in that all four men were from the same team. The St. Louis Cardinals infield of Bill White, Julian Javier, Dick Groat and Ken Boyer made history, but would people remember? I highly doubted that many would recall them.Likewise, when I asked for the national sport of Bhutan, I felt few would know that it was archery. If you got that one, I'm impressed. The fly in the ointment however, came from an explanation for a question that was not even part of the quiz. I wanted to know if you knew the winner of the NCAA basketball championship in 1966. I went on to name the five starters (the first all black starting five in NCAA history) for Texas Western and put a personal note after one of them.Willie Cager was a starter and I suggested he had perhaps the best name ever for a basketball player. That's when my family wanted to know what I was talking about. "Haven't you heard of the word cager?" My wife, son and sister all said no, rather emphatically.It means a basketball player I told them. None of them had ever heard the word before and thought I was making it up. So naturally I headed to my phone for proof that I was not kidding.I typed in cager and the first definition I came to had me reeling. It said "a person who loads or unloads cages, particularly in mining." Now it's my turn to panic. Was I losing my marbles? Did I remember the term incorrectly or (yikes) make it up?I scrolled down and saw a question about the term cager as used in basketball. Finally I was vindicated. Indeed the term did apply to one who played the sport of basketball. Though used consistently in the early 1900's, it is certainly not as common today. But there it was for all to see and yes, I did show my phone to my doubting family members. They were satisfied that I had not made up the term, but wanted to know where it came from. So it was back to the internet.What I found was interesting and I hope it will be for you as well. If you already know of the origin of the word cager you may stop reading. If not, plow ahead, as I think you will enjoy the explanation.As nearly everyone knows the game of basketball was invented by James Naismith. As a physical education teacher at a YMCA training academy in Springfield, Massachusetts Naismith found that his students were bored playing the same games over and over again. So he nailed a peach basket to the wall and brought out a ball encouraging his students to try to put the ball in the basket.The year was 1891 and the game of basketball was born. Within five years a professional league was formed and by then Naismith had formalized the rules for the game. It was one of those rules that led to the term "cager."What was the rule in question and where is this story going? Well the significant rule was that if a ball left the playing court or went "out of bounds" the first player to retrieve it was allowed to throw it back into play. This led to players leaping into spectators for the prized possession. Fans also got involved by trying to help their "team" by keeping opponents from getting the ball.Soon it was apparent that to protect both fans and players from getting hurt something had to be done. The solution was to erect a wire mesh "cage" around the playing court. It would be 12 feet high and a ball would never go out of play. It seemed to solve the problem and the players, by virtue of playing inside this cage, became known as cagers.Eventually the wire mesh was replaced by a rope netting which also led to new problems. By the end of a game a player was marked up from running into the ropes. If they were not bleeding from the rope burns, they at least had markings running all over their bodies.As one former player put it, "you could play tic-tac-toe on my back after every game."I quizzed several people on whether they knew the term and could find no one who was familiar with it. Eventually I found a couple of golfing buddies that provided the answer I was looking for. Thanks to Tope and Etz for verifying my sanity.As for the origin of the term cager I can say as Paul Harvey would – now you know the rest of the story. Wait, what? Who, you ask, is Paul Harvey...