Played the game in the Bedford Park section & Grand Concourse in the Bx. Got our chestnuts from Riverdale, St. James Park (Fordham area)and the Bx. Botanical Gardens. Everybody had their own “secret” formula for hardening them (boiling in vinegar, nail polish, etc.). I don’t think any of them really worked. Never had a real name for the game.
Does anyone remember games of observation like out of state license plates? If you spotted an out-of-state license plate you would start slugging your buddy on the arm until he could either name the right car or it went out of sight. I am interested in identifying other games of observation. If you know of any please share them with me…
And on rainy days(back in the late 50’s) , we would place all of our baseball cards in the appropriate positions(Nellie Fox on second , Luis Aparicio at short , or Harvey Kuenn in right)We would make outfield fences made from blocks of wood or tinker toys. The batter would rest on his elbows with the card on the ground and a flicked finger ready to flick a foil ball into the field. We picked our own teams and the angle of flicking would increase for home run hitters. When the foil ball entered the carpet playing field. The defense had a n opportunity to flick the foil ball toward any base. That is , on a hit to short stop , you would flick it over to a card on the floor(Hank Skowron , etc.) for an out. Any foil bvall that touched a “filder” card on the fly was an out. Any gap shot was usually a double but then your opponent could flick it over to (Brooks Robinson) to hit “him” with the foil ball for an out. We checked all B.A. and move dthe cards accordingly. It was lots of time spent with a brother or friend .
Another activity when we never had the equipment at hand was clothespin ball . There were no bases but boundries for single , double , triple and home run. The “ball” was the clothespin and the “bat” was a mop handle. There were two kinds of pins – the bottle head type and the wire , pinchy kind. Many pins were broken but the way they sailed were both injurious and fascinating. We tried to make a fence in somebodies back yard as the home run wall .
Has anybody played this unique game by placing a firm stick about a foot long and llean it against the curb. The “kicker” boots the sticka nd runs the bases in order. All “baseball” rules apply with one exception. The stick may be thrown onto home base before the runner gets there for an out. The stick may never be thrown at anybody.
well i played ringoleavoi.,but we called it “RELEAVIO” also wiffleball was a great game. i would like to know if you remembered BILLY BILLY BUCK BUCK.we also played “around the world releavio”.
We played this game constantly on summer days in Jersey City during the early 70’s. We called it “Bottlecaps” and what you call the skull was called “poison”. We also carved a board into the street using a screwdriver! I plan on teaching my boys this summer (we’ll stick to chalk since I don’t think the town DPW would appreciate the screwdriver method). Great web site!
I don’t know what made me remember the game of bottle caps and street chalk boards except the fact that my son bought a six pack of Coke in the collectible bottles which have caps on them. I started talking to him about the game I used to play as a child and “poof” my brain retrieved the name skully. My son,(7y.o.), was intrigued by the explanation and couldn’t wait to get started filling the bottle caps with melted crayons. What memories this brings back to me growing up in Canarsie, (in Brooklyn, N.Y..) I hope I can show my son that he can have as much fun as I did. (I took a shot at looking it up on th e internet and here I am). SKULLY LIVES ON! Steve T.
“Kick the can” was also a Bronx game. The kids on my block use to hide our cans so that we wouldn’t have to go scurrying around looking for one the next day; Because the last one to tap their can was it. That was my favorite game, back then. We did all types of cheap tricks, like changing sneakers and hiding inside the garbage can closest to the “can”. And if we didn’t really like the kid that was it. We would run through the backyards and wind up on the other street, leaving the kid all alone for what seemed like hours, trying to find someone. oh, it was the best. I’m glad I not the only one that remembered this game. Thanks for the memories…..Vanessa (32)
We played Ringolevio in Luna Park in the early 70s, during lunchtime at PS 90 (back when they let kids off the grounds on their own!!). We’d cross the street to our favorite playground and eat our bag lunches, and then after lunch we’d have a great game for 30 minutes, girls against the boys. We used electricity. Different pieces of playground equipment were bases, and there was a jail, which was the ladder fort. The boys base was a concrete turtle shape and the girls base was the curved monkey bars. Played all during the school year, but only on that playground. We were all Luna Park kids. We thought we had made up the game! Ha!