Basketball was born back in 1892 in Springfield, Mass., when Dr. James Naismith came up with an idea for a new game in which peach baskets were nailed to walls and players tossed round balls through them.

Originally conceived as an active type of indoor sport to keep players in shape between football, track and baseball seasons, about the only remaining concept from Naismith’s original idea is the ball is still round.

Basketball’s early days featured each team with seven to nine members on the court, you couldn’t dribble and after two fouls, you were out of the game.

What do you want to bet that there was a lot of passing the ball and traveling was the most frequently called infraction.

Times sure have changed over the years and in my opinion, being a basketball referee has to be one of the toughest jobs in the world of sports.

Think about it.

You have a bunch of fans right on top of you seated at courtside and every time you make mistake or blow a call, they’ll let you know in no uncertain terms you got it wrong.

Unlike football or even soccer, where fans seldom agree with officials, at least the people wearing the striped shirts are some distance from the crowds and have the opportunity to flee if necessary to avoid face-to-face confrontations or being beaten with sticks by the angry mob.

Basketball was designed as and is supposed to be a “non-contact sport” but if you believe that, I’ve got some ocean-front property in Montana I’ll let go real cheap.

If a basketball official calls the game “tight” and whistles players for a lot of “touch” or “pitty-pat” fouls, the fans are on them to “let the teams play.” On the flip side, they are in hot water if they let teams get away with pushing and shoving or holding under the boards.

Blocking fouls are easy to call and so are hacks, but where and when do you draw the line on hand checking?

It amuses me when fans say, “well, they play that way on our league and they can get away with stuff like that.”

Stuff like what?

Isn’t that why major league baseball combined the umpires’ association so there wouldn’t be the accusations that National League umpires call the low strikes and the American League doesn’t? The idea was to bring more consistency to the diamonds around the league.

In theory, you aren’t supposed to be able to touch another player with an extended arm while defending on the basketball court.

But that is just conjecture and it comes down to what the officials are willing to let players get away with.

Someone once said that referees could throw a flag for some sort of infraction on just about every play during a football game.

Many teams like to include body checking as part of their game plans and I’ve seen games played on the hardwood that were more like the old days on Broad Street in Philadelphia with the New York Rangers facing off against the Flyers at the Spectrum. Folks, those teams definitely don’t like one another.

What any official has to do no matter what sport they are overseeing is to be consistent. You don’t even have to be fair, just consistent.

One of my Dad’s adages regarding officials was, “the guy wasn’t bias either way, he was just legitimately poor.” That you can tolerate.

Second, and even more important than being consistent, is never, ever, lose control of the game and let it get out of hand.

If you do, you will be in for a world of problems and somebody will end up getting hurt.