Category Archives: Brooklyn
Heels… great game. It…
Born in Brooklyn in 1959…
Born in Brooklyn in 1959 and grew up in Sheepshead Bay around Ocean Parkway between Y & Z (Manhattan Court). I moved to Rochester, NY in 1980 after graduating from college to work for Eastman Kodak. I am 39 now with two kids and my boy is 9 years old. We where home (I still call Brooklyn home) this weekend and I played stickball with my son. The school yard (PS 209) I used to play in is under some kind of destruction/construction so this was just an introduction. It was great to be out there again. Can’t wait until I get my hands on a Spalding though. Pensee-pinkie’s where better. The Spalding’s used to crack in half. I still have my stickball bat from the 70’s so I remembered to bring that along. Remember how many sneakers we used to go through because the toes would be gone from pitching. I remember begging my Mom to buy me PUMA’s when they first came out. I never liked those heavy ADIDA’s. They where $20.00 back 25 years ago. After our little stick ball game I introduced him to PUNCH BALL. We then went home and played “HIT THE PENNY”, “5 boxes”, and “Box Tennis”. I even had a chance to grab a Nathan’s frankfurter and a BAG of fries in Coney Island. I think they still use the same grease for the fries.
In sheepshead bay Brooklyn,…
In sheepshead bay Brooklyn, in Mellet Park (which we use to call Mellow Park) there was a mean ass game of tag we use to play, we called it “RED HOT PEE’S AND BUTTER” or at least that is what I think it was called. First off, you would need a belt or a switch for a tree, if it was a tree branch, it was better if it had some bend in it. It hurt more that way. The rules are: Someone would hide the belt or branch while everyone closed their eyes. This was strickly enforced. If someone looked and cheated, it was 5 lashes, sometimes even if we thought they cheated, 5 lashes. Anyway, the kid who did the hiding called out the hot and cold as everyone looked for the painful weapon. “Duggy you’re hot, you’re burning, you’re smoking!!!” Now, you had to decide if you wanted to get closer to Duggy, knowing that if he finds it, you are the first to get wacked but you did it anyway. Or Duggy could just be faking you out, looking right at the dreaded thing, just baiting you in, to get a few good shots. Then when it was picked up, everyone had to get to the bese to avoid getting their ass wipped. That was it, just Tag with attitude.The person who found the belt or switch would get to hide it nexts. I think was used to play it just to make it more interesting. It always is, when you have more to lose, like your skin. Maurice
I grew up in Coney Island…
I grew up in Coney Island and played stickball throughtout the 1960’s. However, when I moved to Arizona I was involved in the greatest stickball game of my life. I started to play on Saturdays at Arizona State University with three other guys. A pitcher and an outfielder, on the fly against a brick wall. I was playing against my friend Myron (from Brooklyn also) We were both pitching. We each had a no hitter going into the ninth inning. In the bottom of the ninth, Myron hit a home run that landed on the roof of the Women’s PE building to end the game. I lost a no hitter and the game 1-0. We were so drained and I really wanted to beat him, but for that one afternoon, our game transcended time and we were back in the streets of Brooklyn. I’ll never forget it.
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This is a great suggestion – We will be participating in the Back to Brooklyn Festival on June 13 – see our coverage of it! We would like to attend some others this summer. Please send us an e-mail to discuss this more. Anyone else – feel free to add ways to go about this – particularly in other Northeastern cities besides NY. Thanks micknpez [at] streetplay [dot] com
Hey there Sean… I didn’t…
I grew up in the Greenpoint…
I grew up in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn in the fifties and sixties. We played both basic versions of stickball, the “strikeout” format, with a box chalked on a wall for the strike zone. We usually played this version down by the East River docks, where the streets were lined with boxy wharehouses. Hits were scored based on which story of the wharehouse on the opposite side of the street the ball hit. First floor was a single, etc. Balls caught off the wall were out. Fast and exciting game, and you could have as few as one per side, because fielding was minimal. Even a hard hit shot simply rebounded off the wharehouse wall. The other format was the one more like baseball. With sewers for home and second and first and third somewhere in between. The ball was pitched underhand on a bounce. Someone with longer fingers (like me) could put spin on the ball to make it move in practically any direction when it bounced. We included the sidewalks as fair territory, but hitting a car on the fly was out. But as most people know, rules varied practically from block to block, and it was advisable to get them straight before playing on an “away” court. One time we were visiting another team, and they tried to tell us we forfiet the game because we lost the ball. With these and other games we would keep ourselves busy all day. When I go back to the neighborhood, I don’t see anyone playing street ball, and I wonder what they’re doing with their time.
THE RUBBER HEEL WAS THE…
Wow!! Metal roller skates…
Wow!! Metal roller skates and roller skate keys worn on a shoelace around my neck. And box scooters, made from nailing the skates to the bottom of a board which also had a large wooden crate nailed to the top front. I’m back in my Brooklyn in the 50s. I’m young again. NOT!! These are such great memories that they make me want to share with my young daughtes. But I haven’t seen metal skates in any yard sale. And scooters gave way to skate boards. And extreme games. And now there’s inline skates. And what is the world coming to?