The Basques were the first Europeans to use a rubber ball, a discovery from the Americas. While the French were discovering tennis, Mark Kurlansky in his book The Basque History of the World writes how the Basque were heading in a different direction. The word pelote was the word given to the French ball, a French word derived from the verb for winding string. These pelotes were made of wool or cotton that was wrapped into a ball and then covered with leather. The Basques made their balls by wrapping them in rubber which gave the balls extra bounce. They used the balls by bouncing them off walls, thus calling it the “happy game.” A young Basque farm worker got the idea that the pelote could be propelled even faster while scooping up potatoes into a basket—hence the invention of the long scoop-shaped basket and the game Pelote Basque.
