Back in the mid 60’s I started high school. I went to a certain prep school for about the first half of the 9th grade,being a tad rebelous I wasn’t making the kind of grades the adults thought I should. I was taken out of private school and sent to Englewood to live with relatives and attend the local high school (Dwight Morrow H.S.). There I stayed until 11th grade.In my class was one Joey Travolta, his brother John was one grade behind. It doesn’t end there, I went back to Brooklyn to finish the 11th and 12th grades. The school I attended was Sheepshead Bay H.S., two or three grades behind me was a girl named Donna Pescow. For those of you too young to remember a movie called “SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER”, they were the two stars of the movie.
I’m suprised that no one has reminded Mike of the name of the little theater,(little in more ways than one),remember the dwarf & midget clowns that would chase people around the stage wacking everyone on the posterior with sticks that made aloud smacking noise that sounded like it had to hurt. In fact you could barely feel it. They would chase the women around until they stood over a little spot on the stage where they could blow strong gusts of air under the unsuspecting females dress, you guess the rest. Hence,the name,”The Blow Hole Theater”.
Does anyone know where I can get a dozen or two pimple balls? I’m starting up a fistball (punchball) league for the Masters Division (55 years+) and I’ll be damned if we’re going to play with a Spaldeen. …Let’s Show The Kids How The Game Is Played (Taking leads, cuffing the ball, no gloves, etc…)
I grew up in Flatbush Brooklyn. I am 40 yrs old now. We lived on the streets as kids. Our imagination was not provided by a computer or a video game. We had very little money so we had to play with things like skully, stick ball, johhnie on the pony, kick the can, hide the belt, ringoleavio, tag, army, and the fondest memories included building a go cart in the garage. The pride we had rolling that baby onto the street is unmatched in todays children. They would rather buy one. I remember playing skully all summer long. There must have been 40 kids on my block on East 35th street. We made our board with a screwdriver when the tar softened from the summer heat. The rain never washed away our board. I remember the black knees, the worn out middle finger nail, and the extentsive efforts at finding the best cap we could find. Sometimes a kid would show up with what he thought was the cap of all caps, only to find out that it didn’t do the job on the court. One never knew until they actually played the game. Those were the fondest days. The long hot summer nights, the families on the sidewalk in the folding lawn chairs watching the Mets on a black and white TV with a coat hanger as an antenna. (dont forget the aluminum foil) Kids running around with jelly jars catching lightning bugs until “rocky” the ice cream man showed up. The stoop was an institution. We had nothing, but we were rich in that we were never bored. My kids tell me they are bored all the time. We give them so much, that we never let them learn to value things. It’s sad in a way. I loved my life on the streets in Brooklyn in the 1970’s. Thanks for this web site
We played stickball everyday during the summer months on the asphalt sofball field at P.S. 133 in Bellerose Queens in the early ’60’s. Lots of strikeouts, but, nothing like the no vibration feel of hitting the sweet spot of a Pensie Pinkie ball. When hit well it would either be a solid 1 -2 hop ground ball or fly over the fences. Hit over the 30′ high fence and landing into the handball courts in leftfield was a double. Hitting the back fence on a fly in the handball courts was a triple Over that back fence in the handball courts onto the street was a homerun. There simply was no comparison to hitting the Pensie Pinky. Sometimes the ball would glance off the end of the bat and distort itself which caused it to seemingly slowly come off the bat and stretch itself out and you’d never know what direction it would go when it finally hit the ground. Pensie’s also kept their subtleness better when left outside for long periods of time as opposed to the Spaldeen. Pensie was the way to go.
I grew up in South Boston “Southie’ and the white pimple ball (circus ball) was more expensive 15 cents and desirable than the pinky (pennsey?) 10 cents. Circa 1960. We played fast pitch stickball against a brick wall with a chalk marked strike zone and a short field. We played slow ball stickball in a bigger parking lot. Both ways meant some broken windows. Also played handball and “hin-do” to us was a “hin-da” Local accent of course. (Hindrance) We also used the pimple ball for “scrub”, previously referred to as punch ball and another game, “off the steps”. Finally, halfball when the pimple ball lost its bounce. Pinkies were rarely, if ever, used for halfball, and were a poor substitute for all the other games. We also scoured all the flat roofs we could get on and did all we could to get the balls out of the sewers. All and all great memories. You handball guys from NYC must remember Paul Haber, boy, kill shot king. He used to do exhibitions against the local talent at the L Street Bathhouse.
I just spent about a half hour last night explaining the game Skully, that I played as a kid in Brooklyn (1965 Canarsie)to my wife and kids. Could not believe it when I found this website. I’m gonna spend some time this weekend making a few caps. Don’t know if the rest of the family will play but I sure am going to. Thanks!
I noticed that in many of the posts here referring to “Buck-Buck”, the player that stood against the wall was called the “pillar”. I’m an old south brooklyn boy and I played buck-buck regularly as a kid and we called the guy against the wall the “pillow” for what I thought was an obvious reason. If that guy wasn’t standing there it would have been murder for the first guy bent over when the other team jumped on their back. The force would push his head against the wall darn near breaking his neck. With a “pillow” there, he softened the crunch and there was less chance of getting hurt. That being said….”anyone wanna choose up sides and play?”