I grew up a suburb kid in California, have heard of stickball, never played. I loved reading about all your fond memories of these games, makes me wish I had been around to play too. I would like to guess that the origin of the name Pensie Pinky comes from the fact that the Pennsylvania Keystone was printed on the ball, Pensie might be a nickname for Pennsylvania (?).
What is the origin of “Hin-do” for do-over? I make a guess that it might be Germanic, “hinter” means back, like in Berlin they have buildings set up in such ways that there is a front-house and a back-house (hinterhaus). In which case, it is maybe a Yiddish usage. I’m perhaps being redundant: to go back and do over.
Yo Nieves from Booklyn.Much respect to you.But the reason You dont like the spalding is that the ones ther are making now are nothimg like the one from the days.I grew up on the lower east side in nyc in the 70s.The spalding they use to make was made in such a way that you could not squeeze it.If you played stickball or stoop it use to take off.The new ones are nothing like the old ones.If I ever get a hand on a old school ball I will write you and send one to you.Take care Ralph LES
i am from b’klyn. but have lived in thailand for several years now and a very popular street game here is takraw. played with a wicker type ball, it’s basically volley ball using only head and feet. it’s a street game with a high degree of difficulty but i’ve seen some unreal players spinning in the air to make a shot or head spikes. very entertaining to watch. often played on the beach as well.
War and Spud, around my neighborhood, West Philly, was called Baby In The Air. Don, I also remember, Wallball, loved it. We played in the back of our houses, across the narrow, one lane driveways. Threw the ball against one house and had to hit the opposite house’s wall, try to avoid the kitchen windows. Some guys were great in just being able to ‘grease the wall’
the spaldeen was the “original” for us ’50’s kids. no one mentioned salugi [taking someone else’s ball and throwing it around for awhile before giving it back often ending up in a fight]. we invented a rainy day,indoor game called “off the wall, in the hall ball”. basically stoop ball that hit a wall in back of the fielder where every bounce was an additionally base. one bounce a single, 2 a double, etc. failure to hit the back wall or catching it on a fly was an out. anyone out there remember this from B’klyn?
I grew up in the 70s in South Philly, and yes, we played this game, but we called it “Refrigerator”. It was one of the games played at dusk, because we had to stay “in front of the house”. We would stand against the wall of a house which was on the side of the street without parking. The person who was It would stand, opposite us, against a parked car. Then, we would all run to the car and back. We would say “In my refrigerator, I have some_____ (milk, dirty socks, etc).”