I’m absolutely sure that my friends and I called it “choosing up.” We have an article right here on Streetplay about it, http://www.streetplay.com/stories/hangingout/choosingup.shtml.

It’s an interesting topic, though… there must be a million ways to choose up sides. The “hands on the bat” method sounds like the “middle American” way, the way you’d see in a Disney movie. I wonder if there’s even more ways kids did this.