In St Albans, Queens, Galway ave to be exact, in the 50-60s we played a game called “running bases” which sounds like the previous positings “pickle”, “hot box”, or “monkey in the middle”. On either side of the street were the two baseman and a bunch of the kids were in the middle. You had to avoid being tagged out as you ran from base to base. It is like a run down in baseball also known as a pickle. Sometimes if you were tagged out you were out of the game until the last person was tagged out. I believe other times you exchanged places and became the baseman. The bases were safe areas and you could stay on them. Only co-ed game back then.