it started innocently enough. groups would gather, and before long, a game would break out. the objective was simple enough. just take the ball and touch it to the other team's wall. and they would try to stop you from doing that all while trying to touch their ball to your wall. it quickly gained popularity, and the rules changed rapidly. first, in the number of players per team, then what constituted a 'squab' and then how many chances you got at a squab. one thing didn't change though -- people loved to gather and watch a good game of goball. they'd scream and yell, "go!" "let's go!" and even "keep going!" and soon the game had gathered enough steam that it was spreading to multiple cities, and those cities were challenging each other. "our team is better than your team, and if it's not, we'll give you a bucket of peaches." and rivalries were born. soon a league was formed and more rules were put in place. the players now wore uniforms, and their hoobs were owned by men in suits. the suit people paid the best players, and soon there was a draft, and potential players worked very hard to be chosen by a hoob. they stressed their bodies past the point of what had been thought physically possible physiologically. and boy did the people show up and spend their money. more rules were put in place, more cameras were added, bigger venues were built, it was broadcast on multiple channels, and it generated billions of dollars. the previous players, some of them with broken limbs that would never heal, and head trauma (goball had become increasingly and exceedingly violent) -- were forgotten. they banded together and sued the suit people, who had forgotten the initial intention of goball. it was just a game. players no longer found joy in it. there were penalties on nearly every play, and plays were reviewed not only by people physically there, but also by people under hoods and people in a room hundreds of miles away, all trying to decide whether a particular hoob counted or not. and the players, who dedicated so much of their time and energy and years of life from their bodies -- if they showed a little too much emotion when all of their hard work culminated in a squab -- they were penalized. when their bodies were destroyed, on the field, in front of an audience, they were loaded onto a cart like a broken machine and hustled out so that the children didn't have to witness such things. when the carted player held up a hand ...or even a thumb, the crowd would commence cheering. "everything is fine!" they wore the costumes of the players, and they yelled and screamed and encouraged their children to do the same. "gotta support the hoob!" no matter the carnage occurring on the field, they would be there every week to repeatedly bellow "go!!"