In South Philly our ball…
In South Philly our ball of choice was a “pimple ball”, white or rather greyish rubber with 1/8″ dimples with bands running latitudily and stars embossed on both poles. It was used in many games, stickball, wallball, wireball, boxball, miniature,ledgies, points, dinky and the ultimate and most sublime of the street games, Halfball. In further postings I will detail the sublimities of this most enjoyable game.
Two players were separated…
Two players were separated by three squares of sidewalk pavement. One player ‘pitched’ the ball, a pinky, into the box closest to the other player. If the ball missed the box, it was a walk. If the ball landed in the box, the batter slapped the ball, trying to get it to land in the box closest to the pitcher. If he succeeded, each bounce of the ball was another base–one bounce, single, two bounces, double, etc. If the ball landed anywhere but in the box, or was caught on the fly, one out was recorded. The pitcher always attempted to ‘fluke’ the ball so the batter missed it.
two people were separated…
two people were separated by four squares of sidewalk pavement. With a pinky, you had to bounce the ball in the boxes, without hitting the lines and without your opponent catching the ball before it bounced in the box closest to him. You had to bounce the ball in a progression, starting with the box closest to the opponent, then the two boxes closest, then three boxes, then all four boxes, with one bounce in each box only. It’s hard to explain, easier with a diagram.
If we caught a line drive,…
I used to live on Madison…
I used to live on Madison Street in Ridgewood. We used to play stickball all the time. Even though I was a girl, they let me play. I only got one stitch in my entire life. I got it by waiting to get up to bat playing stickball. The guy before me hit the ball and threw the bat. The bat flew into my head just above my eye. Ouch! Did that hurt! When we first moved out to LI, we continued playing stickball at first, but then we started playing softball and kickball in the street. But since we had a stoop, we could still play stoopball.
Johnny on the pony was called…
Johnny on the pony was called “Buck Buck” in South Brooklyn. One team would crouch over one behind the other with one member “The Pillar” standing against a wall. The other team would leap on to the backs of the team crouched over, hoping to double or triple up on one person. The object was to cause a cave in. When all members of the leaping team were up on top of the other team, one of them would hold up one or two fingers and yell out “Buck Buck how many fingers are up. If the team crouched over guessed right, they would get to leap, if not, they had to crouch over again. “The Pillar” was the judge to make sure the leaping team did not cheat.
What I remember best about…
What I remember best about playing Skelly was the variety of pieces we’d use. Usually we’d use bottle tops from soda bottles. Of course this was before the twist-off tops so the trick was to get the top off the bottle without bending it. Sometimes we’d melt crayons into the bottle tops to give them weight – then we could blast the opponent’s top down the block. Sometimes we’d have an open game where you could use any type of top you wanted – large jar tops were particular favorites. These had to be big enough to maximize the chance of hitting your opponent, but not too big to fit into a destination box. The wickedest thing I remember was, when you landed in a box and your opponent was sitting on the box edge, you could put your top right up against his and kick then as far as you could. You got to go to the next box, but your opponent might need the rest of the day to get back on the court!
Morty, Could you elaborate…
In my neighborhood (brooklyn…
In my neighborhood (brooklyn and lefferts, in brooklyn) we played a game called heels. it was quite sophisticated and required a large collection of all kinds of heels, including some we doctored up. i have realized over the years, even though this game was quite sophisticated, it was very local. anyone else?