Definition of "ball game" [ball game]

• A game, especially baseball, that is played with a ball. (noun)
• Slang A competition: "But in the winner-take-all world of politics, the contest for the undecided 2 or 3 percent can be the whole ballgame” ( Brad Edmondson). (noun)
• Slang A particular condition, situation, or set of circumstances. (noun)
• Anthropology A game with religious and political significance in Mayan and various other pre-Columbian societies of Mesoamerica, southwestern North America, and the Caribbean, played with a rubber ball in a walled court. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Few people could resist the prospect of spending the afternoon with Popsy, whether at [the] [a] ball game or an autopsy."
• "Zori was smart, she had a laugh that made everybody laugh, the “soft hair” was thick and black and shiny, she had eyes as black as her hair, she played on the wally team — wally, Toby explained when Stella asked, was a ball game where you bounced two balls off the walls of a small room and scored by a complicated system that made no sense to Stella, even after explanation."
• "And Ernest Wicker, a man that used to work around down at the mill, Mr. London would let him have that truck on Saturday to carry anyone to the ball game that wanted to go."