My friends and I have been playing stickball for years in the suburb of Cranford, New Jersey. We play on a grass field behind a local elementary school. The school has columns that mark out where the batters end up on base, and a beautiful 100+ year old oak tree about 100 yards in dead center that gathers up the tennis balls for the big home run blast.
After testing bat after bat we found a winner. It is the handle of an old shovel sanded down and varnished. It is slightly thicker than a broomstick, so it doesn’t quite get the torque of the thinner bat, but with a solid swing you can’t go wrong.
Not much else to add except that it is good to see that people still know how to go out and get a good game together with nothing on the line except for pride…db