This site is the greatest. My cousin and all my friends played skully for hours on end all summer in the 1940s in Manhattan. I taught my grandson how to play, my kitchen table became a skully board. I printed out the rules and board for him to share with his friends. Hopefully, skully will be around forever. We didn’t have any material goods in those days, but life was sweet and we were creative and enjoyed life.
My Dad, Robert “Lefty” Gregory played on The Presto in the late 30’s early 40’s. His brother Willie Gregory played on the Madision Ave Flashers. Dad went on to play in the Winter Baseball Leagues in Puerto Rico with the San Juan Senators in 47. He returned to Manhattan the following season and went to an open try out for the NY Giants in the old Polo Grounds. He put four consecutive shots in center field which got him a trip to North Carolina to play for the Giants Farm Team. Those were rough days for people of color. I was about five or six and can remember sitting in the stands in center field. Those folks were pretty hostile. Dad was a quiet man and always avoided confrontation. He deceided then to give up his dream of a professional career and we all retuned to live in Brooklyn. Dad played stickball for Home Relief during this time and spent the rest of the decade playing in the great Puertorican baseball leagues in Central Park. Not sure of his team’s name, but I remember the word “GOYA” on his uniform. To say Dad played stickball or baseball at another level was an understatement. When I was about sixteen we were living in the upper Bronx, East Chester Projects. Dad came down one Saturday afternoon to join us while we were playing stickball. We thought we were really good. Dad got up, pointed to each of us in order and said, “This is yours”. Bam! a blur of a warped spaldine would be coming at you at mach 5. BAM! one more for the guy on 2nd and Bam! another for 3rd. My buddies would duck, jump out of the way. To damn hot to handle! For us in the out field he would pop them up so high they come down whistling and dancing the bugaloo! He would place them just where he wanted to, every time. It was a reality check for us young punks! I really miss my Dad and am glad to see this site giving these guys and their generation their due. I was shocked to find out that my Dad was inducted along with my uncle Willie into the hall of fame. This was in the seventies and he never told any of the family. I only found out about it this year when his good friend Hector Arroyo was inducted. That was my Dad! A very humble but unforgetable man.
I grew up in Hell’s Kitchen. There would be a bunch of us (boys and girls)We were about 14 and 15 yrs old and I can remember that our parents would give us maybe $2.00 to go to the movies on the weekend (and not every weekend) We would go to the movies on 42nd St. Back then it was about .75 and back then 42nd St. had lots of arcades and I remember a freak show with a bearded lady and a two headed sheep. We were a roudy bunch, laughing and having a god time but all in good fun…Although times were often tuff, I remember those days with a smile!!!!
These guys are not in the Stickball Hall of Fame but certainly belong there. They used to play for the Little Italy team that played against the great Puerto Rican teams from Spanish Harlem and the Bronx in the late 50s and early 60s. Whoever had the opportunity to witness a game between the Italians and the Puerto Ricans on Mulberry Street on a Sunday afternoon saw stickball at its best. Both teams had outstanding hitters and fielders. And, unbelievable hustle and heart! Members from the Italian team 1. Vinny Head 2. Big Gary 3. Eddie Poop 4. Jimmy Alber 5. Tiger 6. Beansy 7. Jimmy Tips 8. Mike Fink 9. Smitty 10. Angie Bird 11. Maxie 12. Billy Bonds
Hi, Jeane: My friends and I used to rent out bikes in that shop when we were twelve and thirteen years old. Right next door to the bicycle shop was a pet store that specialized in pigeons. In my neighborhood (Little Italy), most of the guys were pigeon crazy. Almost every block had a coop or two on it. Back in the late fifties, the rents were so low that landlords really didn’t care what you put on their rooftops– although it was much wiser to seek permission from the landlord before you started building your coop and buying pigeons for it. We had coops on Mott and Prince Street, on Prince and Mulberry Street, on the Bowery and Prince Street, and on Houston and Mott Street. Sometimes, when we were up on the roof during school hours, the truant officer would come up. Then my friends and I would have to scamper six-stories down the fire escape and into the yard to get away from him, laughing all the way. Getting back to the bicycle shop you mentioned in your post. I believe the name of it was “Barbares.” And that it was located across the street from Sara Roosevelt park, a short distance from the corner of Houston St. The owner used to charge us thirty-five cents an hour to ride those old, heavy, hard-to-pedal bicycles that we used to call “trucks.”
Yeah, we called it Chinese Handball and usually played for asses up. With our hard throwers, losing was equal to having a red ass for hours. One kept throwing until he missed. We played at the courtyard at 3200 Broadway in Manhattan. What made the game even more of a challenge was that we had a back wall to contend with. From front to back it was about 10-12 feet. A really good player could “cut” the ball and make it take a crazy first bounce only 6 inches from either the front or back wall. There were lots of scraped knuckles. “Knucles”, that’s another game.