One of a number of Chaffee & Selchow table games about sports at the turn of the century: Bicycle Race (1891), The New Bicycle Game (1894), Bowling (1896), The Harvard-Yale Game (1899).
The Game of BASKET BALL came out in 1898. Margaret Hofer in her book "The Games We Played" refers to the game with this short paragraph:
"Women's Basketball was introduced on the Northampton, Massachusetts campus of Smith College in 1892 less than 1 year after the game's invention. In 1898 when this table game appeared, women were playing basketball at recreation centers, YWCA's, college gymnasiums, settlement houses, and high schools across the country."
This game is also listed by AGCA in its "Game Catalog" 8th edition dated October 1998 and by Joel Shrock in his book "The Guilded Age".
While the cover indicates that the game was © 1898 by Chaffee & Selchow, the cover says "Published by McLoughlin Bros." (copy at The Strong).