Remember “Hill Dill Come Over My Hill”? One person was it in the center called out “Hill Dill Come Over My Hill” and all the other people would have to make it (run) to the other side without getting caught. If you got caught you were in the center with “it”. This was repeated until everyone was caught.
It has been a good ten or eleven years since I have held a stickball bat. Those were the days! I have since left the greatest city in the world, but will return in two years! I am interetsted in starting a stickball league or even just a few pickup games with my fellow classmates. Can get the tennis balls, but what about stickball bats? I don’t want to use broom handles. Where can I find some good-quality bats? Maybe on the internet? Let me know. It’s a great game!
Picture a shallow wooden box sitting on the floor, say three feet wide by six feet long, with a slot carved out at either short end. In front of each slot is a wooden block which does just that, serves as a goalie of sorts to block the puck from coming through the slot (goal). The two players sit on the floor at either end, behind each goal. In their hand they hold a knock hockey stick, which looks like a miniature of the real thing. The players vie for possession of the puck to start. Whoever has control of the puck uses the hockey stick to hit the puck at strategic angles against the sides of the board, the object of course being to get the puck through the slot (goal) with one whack. If the player doesn’t succeed, the other player gets a turn, hitting the puck from wherever it landed last turn. If you keep hitting it in the goal, you keep going. The amount of points to win is determined at the outset of the game, usually 25.
I grew up on 181st between Vyse and Bryant in the Bronx. (right around the corner from the Bronx Zoo-South enterance “West Farms Square”) We called it skully. Had to go 1-13 and around the center and back down to become a killer. If you ended up in the sections around 13 you were stuck till someone hit you out. We all had different size caps filled with wax. When it rained we played on the linoleum in my bedroom (6 story walk up) that had flowers located in the in the shape of the “skully”. I am now a Phys Ed teacher in Phoenix and we play skully, stickball, one wall handball, off the curb, punch ball and Johnny on the Pony. The kids love thses games and I really enjoy the memories while playing with them.
What about “wireball” where you would stand on the sidewalk under the electric wire that ran down the street and throw the ball vertically up at the wire. If it hit the wire it was a home run-but only if the other team did not catch it before it hit the ground. If they caught it you were out. If it didn’t hit the wire then you got a single, double, or triple depending on how far into the street the ball went,but only if they didn’t catch it.