Wacky World of Rubber: The true story behind the rubber match

It hasn't been a good year for my Cleveland Cavaliers.

Even if you're not a sports fan, I am sure you've heard that the Cavs and Warriors are pretty darn good basketball teams (or at least were before Kyrie Irving…no, this is not the place for that). The pair have faced off in the last three NBA Finals. Golden State won the first round and Cleveland struck back epically in 2016.

The hype for what many deemed as an inevitable rematch began long before the first game of the 2016-17 season tipped off, but for good reason. The two teams ultimately breezed through the playoffs, losing a combined one game on their way to the NBA Finals. Unfortunately for me Golden State won the rubber match…convincingly.

But after hearing that term, "rubber match," thrown around over and over again throughout the course of the eight-month NBA season, I got curious: Why "rubber?" The world of sports is littered with rubber, from athletic fields to equipment, yet how did a word that came to describe one of the most innovative compounds in mankind become synonymous with the word "tiebreaker." It didn't make any sense.

That's because the word "rubber" isn't referring to the definition our industry has come to know all too well. The word's origins can be traced back to the 1600s, when the English used the term "rubber" as a reference to an object used for rubbing, or cleaning.

The term found its way into the popular 16th century game of lawn bowling, which is similar to bocce ball. Opponents roll wooden balls across the yard in an attempt to get them as close as possible to a smaller white ball without hitting it. A fatal mistake occurred if two balls "rubbed" together, thus eliminating one team.

Once "rubber" linked up with elimination, the game that would ultimately eliminate one team in a lawn bowling series became known as the "rubber match." The phrase made its way into a variety of 18th century card games and is now commonly used throughout the sports world.

Just like the compound it now commonly represents, the word "rubber" takes many forms.

Chris Sweeney enjoys Cleveland sports even when they routinely let him down. Follow him on Twitter @CSweeneyRPN.