How many of you folks ever played “buck-buck” ?? One team leader crouched by a fence, holding it with both hands, presenting his back parallel to the ground. The other kids on his team lined up behind him in similar fashion… The opposing team would take a running start and leap onto the backs of the crouchers, one at a time. The jumper would shout..”Buck-buck, how many horns are up??” as he (she) held up one or more fingers of a hand…..
I just wanted to put my 2 cents in from the Queens/Nassau line….In the 50’s and 60’s back there the game dictated the ball. Wall stickball, with lots of field area and several players per side – spaldeen. It went further, which was okay under these conditions. Stoop ball from one side of narrow street ( other curb = home run ) – Pensie Pinkie. It was softer, more contollable under those conditions. Life was great: stick ball, stoop ball, wiffle ball, 2-hand touch, 4 horses, Yoo-Hoos, baseball over the radio. Are Pensie Pinkies available anywhere?
Played stickball in Rego Park, Queens in the late 40s and early 50s with Spaldeens. (Just bought a case of the new version.) Mostly we used broomsticks, but sometime in the 60s I bought a manufactured bat, which I still own and sometimes use to play with my brother. I couldn’t pitch very well as a kid, and still can’t, but was and am a pretty good hitter though I’m almost 60. Remember 1 game in 1954 when I hit a home run right down the foul line (the corner of an apartment building) which was protested for weeks afterwards by the opposing team.
Played stick, stoop, punch, hand, box, base and softball in Rego Park, Queens in the late 40s and early 50s. Used spaldeens for the 1st 5, as Pennsy Pinkies were considered inferior in that neighborhood. There were 2 basic versions of stick: 1) balls and strikes against a wall with chalked strike zone (between shoulders and knees of a medium sized kid and about 18″ wide) and pitches thrown on a fly, with a minimum of two players, but no base-running and; 2) in the street with a sewer as home, a car as 1st, another sewer as 2nd and another car as 3rd, pitches on a bounce and base running. This version needed lots of players. Punch ball was like 2nd version of stickball.
My husband told me that a posting about a “girl game” was in the running around section, so I came looking. Not only that, but he knows I loved jacks as a kid and grew up in Chinatown, so he figured – ah – right up your alley. Anyway we played chinese jacks exactly the same way you did, only chinese mothers (and my mother) made the jacks just like little bean bags filled with rice. The rules are the same, but the materials different.
how about winters, we couldn’t afford the sleds with runners so we found some large pieces of cardboard, or cloth potato sacks and slid down the “slopes” in Crotona(sic) Park in da bronx – the highest hill was near the swimming pool right across from PS (i can’t remember PS what) where i took a “special” class (called cardiac class – cause i had rheumatic fever and a heart murmur), we used to have to take a nap while the other kids were out playing… & in the summer we used to use cardboard or sacks and slide down the same grass covered hills… that was back in the late 30’s – a few years ago i took my son to show him the tenements, schools and park where i grew up as a youngster (before movin to Boyle Heights in Los Angeles) ((now know as East LA))… the school and apartments were all boarded up—i almost cried!!