I grew up in the East New York section of Brooklyn in the 1950’s. Remembered Playing skelly outside on the sidewalk in front of the blvd projects. We made skelly caps from soda caps with the cork still in it. While the crayon wax was still wet we would put a charm that would come out of a gumball machine in it. Loved the game .
lol, for Christ’s sake randy rabinowitz…..you made my day….i used to do the same thing with the half spaldeens…..used to stick them to my face, or stick it around my mouth and try to breath….what a dopey kid i was, lol……..or maybe i was just a normal avg kid back then…..as i’m writing this i have a blue rubber ball on my keyboard…closest thing i could find to a spaldeen…anyhow, i also got a stick in my closet….taped and ready in case at the age of 41 someone wants to challenge me…….take it easy
I grew up playing Skully in Brooklyn and Queens in the late fifties. We were never sure how the name of the game was spelled, because there was no occasion to ever actually write the name. We used to melt candle wax into the bottle caps to give them weight, and for some reason, the beer bottle caps were always considered to be the best to have. One of the terms of the game that I haven’t yet seen in various versions of written rules I’ve come across is “Heading for the Hills”. This was when your opponent became a killer and needed to hit you three times in a row to get you out, so you would keeping blasting your own cap down the block so he could hopefully never catch you. “Heading for the Hills” was not really “fair” and usually not allowed but sometimes it was, depending on the mood of the players that day.
I was a child in Gerritsen Beach Brooklyn in the early 70’s before moving to rural Virginia in 1976. For years I have described this game to people (primarily transplants from NY) and until today have never found anyone who remembers, even my sister and brothers only have very vague memories of it. The one game that I really missed playing was skully after we moved. I was just in Brooklyn last week and I asked my much younger cousin if they had ever played, but she had no idea what I was talking about. I decided to look up “street games” tonight and lo and behold, here I am. I am definately going to teach both of my kids to play. As I read the directions, I realized that my memory of this game was pretty good, except I remember a tail of sorts going down from the “1” square that I think you finished down. not too sure about that. My favorite part of the game was making the bottle caps with melted wax crayons. I was so happy to find all your posts, fellow skully afficionados! Skully on!
Thank you for creating this site. I grew up in Flatbush, Brooklyn in the early 70’s and have many fond memories of playing skully. While reminising with old friends about all the games we played, I decided to search on the internet. Thank you for clearing up our fuzzy memories of all the rules. I plan on marking up my driveway and practicing my skills again.
I grew up in Long Beach on Long Island in the early 60s. As I recall the Pinsie Pinky was .19 and the Spaldeen .29 The Spaldeen was more durable but the Pinky really flew if you hit it on the nose with a good stickball bat. Now I have a 14 year old and we live in Mission Viejo Califonia. I don’t understand it, he’s a Yankee fan and loves to play stickball with me at least twice a week as long as my 51 year old arm can take it. I had to have relatives from NY send us a real stckball bat from Spalding and a few dozen balz. These are great memories to share and make with him. …Tom
I’m on the job as a magazine designer, looking for an image of a spaldeen. No time to read the postings here, so this is probably not news, but… the image you have here leaves out the most important feature of a spaldeen, the seam. Without it, curve-ball/screw-ball pitchers like me would have been tatooed all over the park. As spaldeen made the balls cheaper and cheaper, the seams became even more outrageous. It doesn’t get any more rewarding than when you and the batter are cracking up over the dipsy doodles those balls used to take.
I grew up in Boston (Charlestown) in the 60’s. We played half ball with two players up against the doctor’s building near the monument. It was a solid 3 story brick building with just a few windows on the side of the street where we played. It was a great game because you only needed two kids and you could get a ball fairly cheap at Connie’s down the street. We’d cut a pimple ball in half and play for hours. Our rules were a hit to the opposite sidewalk was a single. Up to the first floor was a double, second floor a triple and third floor a homer. You could catch the ball off the building and it was an out. Or, you could play a one bounce rule and it was still an out. We usually used an old broomstick and threw some tape around one end for a grip. We’d always get in trouble because the doctor’s receptionist sat at the window and we’d inevitably slam one into it several times during the course of the afternoon. I don’t think we ever tried too, but it just happened over the course of the game. She was always yelling at us or telling our mothers to stop us from scaring the patients. 🙂 Those days bring back fond memories of living in the city and spending hot summer afternoons whacking around a half ball like our favorite RedSox players did at Fenway. Glad to see that some people are still keeping the memories of that game going after all these yrs. Thanks!