How To Play Basketball, 1904
George T. Hepbron | How To Play Basket Ball (Spalding’s Athletic Library), 132 pages | New York: American Sports Publishing Co., 1904
In 1904, the first basketball how-to-play book was published by A.G. Spalding & Bros., then the leading supplier of athletic equipment. It was written by future Basketball Hall of Fame member George T. Hepbron, then-Secretary of the Amateur Athletic Union’s National Basketball Rules Committee.
Published the same year that Edwin Bancroft Henderson first introduced basketball on a wide scale organized basis to his students in Washington, DC’s public school system, this book was filled with rules and guidelines about everything from foul shooting to scorekeeping to ethics.
At first, African American basketball players, coaches, managers, and organizers were meticulous about following the ideals dictated by basketball’s amateur and intercollegiate authorities.
(Black Fives Foundation Archives)
How the positions got their names. 
A basketball court was referred to as the “field of play.” 
To shoot the ball was known as “throwing for goal,” which is why today the foul shot is still called a “free throw.” 
Players were to avoid doing “ungentlemanly” things on the court that they will be ashamed of in their calmer moments.