Category Archives: Queens

First off, I would like…

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First off, I would like to say that it is so encouraging to see how many people really do care about stickball. Its honestly a passion and a thrilling sport. I’m posting the following as a footnote to anybody that might be interested and just to let the stickball world in general know that the sport is alive and well in my area. Myself and around 5-7 other guys, all around 21 years old play stickball almost everyday in Bayside, Queens. We even keep statistics and have made it into a small league. I first learned of stickball from my father, who grew up in the same area, and it is remarkable to see how much of a comeback stickball has made in recent times. I realize that in the grand scheme of life i am very young, but each year it seems more and more people are purchasing bats and taking up the sport. This is evident by the difficulty you have even finding a place to play around here often times. If any other guys play in the area feel free to drop me an email, just letting everybody know that the sport is very much alive.

We called the game potsie…

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We called the game potsie in Queens in the late 40’s and early 50’s. I wrote a children’s story about something that actually happened to me. I used to play it with my cousin who is a boy and once humiliated him by announcing it in public. He still remembers being very embarrassed!

We played stickball everyday…

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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 used to play a game called…

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I used to play a game called “American Eagle” in astoria projects as a kid. One person would be “it” and would stand in the middle of the field with all the other kids on one side of the field. Whoever was it, yelled American Eagle and everyone would try to charge to the other side of the field. The guy that was it would have to tackle someone and say “American Eagle 1,2,3, three times fast while he held his captive down. Then there was two people in the middle, would yell American Eagle again, and they would both try and tackle and capture the other kids running back across the field, until they were down to the last person. We would play until the Housing Authority Police chased us off the grass.

We used to fish the lost…

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We used to fish the lost spauldeens out of the sewers in astoria projects where I grew up by fashioning a metal coat hanger with a little loop at the bottom enough to lift the ball out of the muck. Someone called “chips” on the ball, 15 cents was couple days of bottle hunting…Yuk…here’s your ball kid.

Does anyone remember the…

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Does anyone remember the rest of this: …to the Jackie Gleason Studio Mr. Knickerboker, Knickerbocker Doobi-di do Your sure look slick A Hickory Stick Now lets get the rythmn with the hands 1,2,3, We got the rythmn with the hands 1,2,3, Now, lets get the rythm with the feet 1,2,3, Now we got the rythm with the feet 1,2,3, Who’s got the rythm with the eeeeyes We got the rythm with the eeeyes Who’s got the rythmn with the hips Oh Boy!! We got the rythm with the hips Oh Boy!! Who got the rythm with the count by 5’s 5, 10, 15,….so on. I think this was achoosing song with the girls standing in a circle. When you started counting by 5s the girl in the middle would close her eyes and spin around in a circle with her hand pointed out. When we reached 100, that girl would replace the girl in the middle and the song would start all over again. This was played in Jamaica, Queens during the ’60s.