Can You Match the Equipment to the Sport?

American kids grew up collecting baseball cards pictured with their favorite popular baseball superstars plus their accompanying career stats. Also included in the cards are the players' autographs.

To distinguish specific sports played in different regions of the world, people call North American football "gridiron football" sometimes because of the field design. Today, gridiron football is synonymous only with the football played in the U.S.

Whether you play it as billiards, pool or snooker, these games share several common pieces of equipment. Since the balls they use are shiny, the cue sticks need to have their edges chalked. The chalk enables the stick to touch the balls better, enough to propel them to the desired pocket.

Swimming as a sport requires specific swimming strokes to use for specific types of races or swim meets. There's the freestyle, butterfly, breaststroke, and the backstroke. Diving might be swimming-related, too, but it's considered a different sport altogether.

If you think simply pulling an arrow on a bow to shoot a target is what constitutes archery, think again! Other protective gear needs to be in place before even starting such as an arm guard, a chest guard, and finger tabs to decrease friction and chafing.

Winter countries developed the game of hockey wherein they can play on frozen water or ice rinks using hook-like sticks and a round but flat puck. But aside from the popular ice hockey, there are variations to this sport which don't require wintertime weather or equipment.

James Naismith holds the credit for inventing basketball as an indoor sport during wintertime. He put up two baskets on opposing sides but the game had to halt whenever someone scored. To avoid the delay caused by getting the ball out of the basket, he thought of removing the basket bottoms.

People intimidated with carrying the huge and heavy bowling ball with holes for the fingers can practice with duckpin bowling first. Unlike the usual tenpin bowling, this one uses smaller balls without holes that are not as heavy as regular bowling balls.

Tennis produced great players who made a mark on the court and outside of it, too. One of them is Arthur Ashe, the Grand Slam titleholder who also boldly came out with his HIV-positive status in the early '90s. He helped educate the public about the virus during those years.

Although there are many martial arts that emphasize the use of weapons, karate relies on using body parts as defensive and offensive weapons. The term means "empty hand" in Japanese and newbies wear white belts. Belt colors change as players improve ranks.

Spectators might be familiar with Tour de France as the ultimate cycling competition for worldwide cyclists; but the French don't have a monopoly on these cycling events. The U.S. has its Amgen Tour of California, Spain has Vuelta a España while Italy has the Giro d'Italia event.

The most common type of relay racing, when seen from the track and field category, involves runners passing on a relay baton to one another. There's a skill to passing this baton and there's an area designated for passing as well. Violating both can result to penalties or disqualification.

Like lawn tennis, badminton players also use a racket but it's not as heavy as tennis ones. But unlike tennis, there's no ball hit in badminton but a projectile called shuttlecock. It's a cone-shaped device formerly created with feathers attached to a cork center.

Two ancient ways of fisticuffs contributed to boxing as we know it today. Early boxers, known as pugilists, got that term from pugilism or fighting using uncovered clenched fists.

Wondering just what kinds of sports disciplines are legit in mixed martial arts or MMA? Aside from the obvious ways of boxing, athletes can also display their prowess in judo, wrestling, karate, Muay Thai or kickboxing, jiu-jitsu, taekwondo, capoeira, wushu sanshou and sambo.

Need a shootout sport where no one gets physically hurt? Then try paintball shooting wherein you'll use specially designed weapons filled with gel-like capsules filled with paint colors. The object is to shoot the opponent and you'll score when they get hit by those colors.

We may simply know it as "horseback riding" but the actual sporting term recognized by the International Olympic Committee is known as equestrianism. The competition involves different strands which include jumping, dressing and eventing.

The golf we know today had its prototype originate from Scotland sometime during the Middle Ages but a similar game already existed in the Netherlands much earlier. Also, a similar game already manifested in ancient Chinese dynasties and during the Roman Empire.

Naysayers don't consider chess a sport because it "lacks a physical aspect." But the English Chess Federation begs to differ and argues that there's a physical component to it. They say that to have the great mental condition needed to play, one's body must be in good physical condition, too.

Certain sporting competitions also get treated as a "spectacle sport" since scripted theatrics and exaggerated showmanship become part of its process and attracts audiences more than the sporty side of it. One such sport is the roller derby where two skater groups try to "out-skate" each other.

For those who get confused with kayaking and canoeing, the athlete's position and the paddle they use will tell the difference. When you see the athlete sitting, legs hidden by the contraption, using a paddle with two blades, that's kayaking. Canoeing uses a single blade paddle only.

Common folks might think that surfing is just one leisurely way to while away time on the beach, but it's also a competitive sport with scheduled worldwide competitions. The World Surf League provides information for these events.

Fencing uses three types of weapons or swords for the competition; the most familiar and common to all is the foil. The épée is the second one and the third is sabre or saber. Each sword type also has its distinct areas in the body where you're only allowed to hit for points.

Yes, rodeo is indeed a sport and it's also very competitive since it involves cowboys, cowgirls, horses, cattle and other livestock needed for events. While the term "rodeo" is American, the sport is also big in cattle-herding countries like Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia, among others.

The terms Grand Prix, Formula One, Le Mans, NASCAR or Daytona 500 might be familiar to auto racing enthusiasts. To outsiders, these races might appear the same but the pros know that they're not! There are various types of races depending on the vehicle you use and how the race track gets set up.

Grappling is the name of the game for wrestling wherein athletes need to perform specific holds and pinning down of their opponents to earn points. But the U.S.-based World Wrestling Entertainment promoted professional wrestling full of theatrics that people sometimes consider fake.

If you think putting on skis and using poles to ride down a slope constitutes skiing, think again! There are different skiing types depending on the technique you use and location where you do it. There's the usual Alpine skiing, cross-country skiing and freestyle skiing, to name a few.

Older generations might remember that they called this barbell-carrying sport as weightlifting before and it was just one part of the competition. However, athletes who wanted to focus more on the lifting aspect developed powerlifting as a separate game altogether.

Table tennis is parallel in playing style with lawn tennis, the reason why it's termed as such. But when it was invented in England, it didn't have a name yet. A British entrepreneur started manufacturing equipment for it which he trademarked as "Ping-Pong" so that name stuck for a while.

Bullfighting involves a matador waving a red cape for a bull to charge or attack them; the point is to subdue the attacking animal. Contrary to popular belief, the bull doesn't react to the color of the cape. Rather, it reacts to its movement which triggers it to attack the one holding the cloth.

Motorcycle riders need to get tough and alert while competing in a motocross. It's good that they use secure helmets in this race since they're required to ride on dirt road types of terrain for the competition.

Indigenous peoples of the planet played many of the sports prototypes we now enjoy today such as lacrosse. This game was also a war training routine for Native American people since the rigorous way they played it was akin to strength and endurance training needed for battle.

In gymnastics, your basic equipment is actually your body which you need to train for flexibility, strength, grace, agility, stamina, poise and of course balance. This training will reflect on how a gymnast performs in various events like the balance beam.

Bobsled or bobsleigh races is officially a Winter Sports Olympic game where winter countries send teams to race using sleds or sleighs. So imagine a tropical country like Jamaica sending a bobsled team to compete. Watch their true story in the 1993 biopic "Cool Runnings."

In clay pigeon shooting, they release targets high in the air and shooters need to gun it down using shotguns. If you're thinking that the sports' name sounds cruel and violent, that's because this sport originated using real pigeons.

The elongated hammer-like club used for croquet is a mallet while the hoops where the ball should go are wickets. An earlier version of this game was highly popular in France centuries ago called paille-maille or pall-mall. Croquet developed in the 1800s.

Americans who travel to Europe or South America might get confused when they hear of a football game only to find out that it's a soccer match. Nonetheless, the sport's popularity has also spread in North America and soccer players like David Beckham are popular worldwide.

British-related territories such as India, Pakistan, Australia and the West Indies play cricket as a result of their colonial heritage. This is because the sport is huge in England where it's considered as their "national summer sport" just like baseball is in the U.S.

If you think darts is just a game put up by bar and pub owners for their drinking customers, think again. There's a World Darts Federation that oversees dart tournaments and competitions. They even have their own World Cup to boot!

Dancing a complicated routine is a hard enough skill to execute; imagine if you need to dance on ice. This is what competitors in figure skating undergo every single time they perform for the judges. Nonetheless, it has been in the Winter Olympics for more than 100 years already.