I grew up in Bayside, Queens,My Mom still lives in the same house.It was ringoleevio.I don’t remember thr rule. We also playe stickball with a broomhandle and a spaldeen.We also played punchball.skelly,boxball,stoopball and Chinesehandball The girls and sometimes th boys played Hop scotch,potsie?, jacks. Then there was Johnny on the Pony also known as Buc-Buc. I think all of this is almost gone
This is mostly hearsay, but I do know that this game was played in inner-city Wilmington, Delaware ( I have many friends from there) in the mid-80’s under the name “relievio” and games lasted several days, and encompassed several square miles of territory. Each team had a home base, and “teams” would remain constant throught a summer, with challenges being issued from one team to another and lasting until one team or the other was finally all caught. Players had “positions” to play, and teams typically encompased ages from 6 to 16. I grew up in southern New Hampshire, and we had a similar game called “team tag” (OK, we’re bland and had no creativity). It was like the New York version of “ringaleavio” with a single team being “it” though there was no real hiding, since we played in an open field. Players were freed from, Jail via a single tag, and a whole line of players could form so long as one was actuall topuching “jail.”
Thanks to all who posted — NOW I know what this game was about! Kids who were a little older (faster? smarter?) played this game on the Lower East Side when I was about 8 or 9 (36 years ago), and I remember mostly the guys yelling, “Ringolevio, caught, caught, caught, caught!!” I wondered what the heck was going on, but they thought I was too young to play so I never knew much about this game — until now. – webdiva
We played Ringaleavio almost every summer night in Arverne, Far Rockaway. Like Greg of Big Six Towers, I lived in a self-contained block of buildings with parks, benches, bushes and grassy areas in the middle. As soon as enough kids (boys & girls – mostly boys) showed up, 2 captains would choose teams and then one team would go out to hide while the other team waited 10 minutes or so. Generally, kids moved in small groups, although there were some slippery hard-cores who like to hide alone. The park bench that everyone started from, was the home base (jail). Kids were captured when someone had contact for the duration of saying; “caught caught Ringaleavio 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3.” They would be escorted back to the home base where they had to stay unless one of the hiders could get to the base uncaptured and yell; “HUMPFREE-ALL!” Incredible game . . . started around 7pm and usually went til about 9.
We played Ringaleavio before Hebrew school in Bensonhurst. We had something called Electricity. The kids in Jail would form a human chain, so that it was easier to touch one person. All the kids jailed would be free if they were part of the human chain.
I grew up in the lower east side, being only 34 that wasn’t long ago. We played the same game but called it ‘Man hunt’….We usually played in the street, but had an apartment version where we played in the building and the staircases…someone always cheated and hid in their own apartment
Thats the way we played on 51st between 6th and 7th. Sunset Park Rules as they would now say.. Not to many here from our neighborhood..
I grew up in Sunset Park, Brooklyn…57th St. I also remember playing the game and having to say “Caught Caught Alevio, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3” and then the person would be caught. It definitely sounds like the same game. Anyone else remember playing this way?
Squash—- A Spaldeen ball hit with a tennis racket against a handball wall. It ruined me for tennis for life, since I can’t learn to keep my wrist straight. Too used to flicking the wrist in order to “Kill” the ball in squash. Played it in the park at Nostrand and Foster, adjacent to P.S. 269.