The Origins of Fightball:

Jimmy "Tex" MacDonald, who was also called "The Duke," loved to beat people up. He liked it so much that he made up a game about it.

See, the Duke was the boss of a big chunk of Downtown, and he ran it so well that by the summer of 2315 there was pretty much no one left for him to beat up for work. So he talked a few of his craziest friends into fighting each other for fun, and he called it the "Fight Ball."

The original Fightball didn't even have a ball, and it sure didn't have any rules. Jimmy just liked the name, probably because it was catchy, simple, and survived an exhaustive trademark search. After an afternoon of inflicting serious injuries on his dearest friends, the Duke was convinced that this needed to be a regular thing.

Enrique Nesmith, one of Jimmy's lieutenants, missed the first event because of a scheduling error. This is what he claims, anyway. The fact is, Nesmith loved the idea of Fightball but hated the idea of people getting hurt for no reason. Actually, that's not exactly true either. He was just terrified of himself getting hurt. So, before he played in Game 2 he decided to have a little talk with the Duke. They came up with these rules, which they spraypainted on the wall:

1: Get the Ball in the Hoop
2: Only Hit The Guy with the Ball
3: No Weapons Drawn Unless Absolutely Necessary

Rule 2 gave some folks pause, because they weren't sure if (a) they were only allowed to hit the player who had the ball, which seemed like the spirit of the rule, or (b) there was only one object you could hit a guy with, and that was called "the ball," which was another perfectly valid way to read it. Also, since it was "the guy," you could apparently still hit the girls anytime, with anything, so pretty soon rule 2 got painted out and replaced with:

2: The Player With the Ball is the Player You Should Probably Hit.

Nevertheless, before Rule 2 was changed, the Weapon-Balls were invented. Martin Strange, captain of the Martinets (the first Fightball team to have a name) designed the Blue, Green, and Red Fightballs for use as weapons first, shooting second. After all, the guy with the ball is going to need a weapon, no matter how you read Rule 2. He showed his new inventions to The Duke, who liked them so much he threw all three into the game at the same time.

At this point, the game was still mostly a brawl, with nobody doing much about getting the ball into the hoop. Enter the wily young history buff, Arizona Severe. Severe was a game designer at heart, and a big fan of the sports of the 20th Century (though honestly he had no clue how they were played). He had a crazy idea about "motivation" and "game theory" and he managed to push through this little rules change that made all the difference:

1: Get the Ball in the Hoop, and That's Worth Points.
…
4: The Team with More Points Wins.

After that, it was just a matter of deciding when to stop.