Category Archives: Other Spaldeen games
I grew up in Sunset Park,…
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I grew up in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. I also remember playing “hit the stick”. We also played with the icecream stick, standing on opposite ends of 2 cement squares, and trying to hit the stick with a “spalding” ball. I think the winner would be the first one to score 10 or maybe 20 points.
Here’s how we played in…
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Here’s how we played in Rochdale Village in Queens circa late 1960’s: We also used bottle caps weighed down with melted crayons. I remember Mom getting pissed when some dripped inside her newly cleaned oven. After awhile, some guys used the plastic caps that came on the “new” plastic milk containers. We quickly outlawed the larger jar caps, especially the Motts Apple Sauce caps. Our box was a prepainted “boxball” court (there’s another great game)that was approx. 6’x6′. Each numbered box, done up in chalk, was about 6″x6″. “Running out of town” was prohibited! If I remember correctly, after running 1 – 13 and then 13 – 1, you had to go around the “Skelly” before you became a Killer. You had to hit a guy three times to get him out. Obviously, you would try to line up that third hit so that you could blast him out of the playground – just to rub it in a little.
Out on LI, just off Hempstead…
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Out on LI, just off Hempstead Turnpike in W. Hempstead, there was a long red brick supermarket wall, and concrete paving all the way to the street. This became known as “The Office.” Games of ‘Chinese’ Handball went on all day long in the late 50s and early 60s. Chinese handball was played in a ‘court’ usually two pavers square and was distinguished by one rule: You had to bounce the ball once before it hit the wall. “The Office” was well equipped: Across the street was “Three Finger Jack” McGinn’s candy store, and there was a staircase next to the handball wall where you could climb down and have more ‘private’ conversation, or hide if your mom came looking for you and your cigarette-smoking hooligan friends.
Ever play Hit the Stick…
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Ever play Hit the Stick We would take a stick from an ice cream bar and put it on a crack between two cement pads on the sidewalk. Standing at the end of the cement pads each player(2 players)on opposite sides, would try to hit the stick with a spauldeen. Bounceing it back and forth.. I don’t remember how the game was won.. Anyone??
TETHER BALL! A…
The girls in my neighborhood…the…
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The girls in my neighborhood…the lower East Side of Manhattan played a game where we put down a penny on the sidewalk. They stood apart from each other, usually using two square cement blocks of sidewalk. One girl would stand on the right of the penny and the other on the left. And you bounced the ball hoping to hit the penny with the ball to get a score. If the penny flipped over, you got a higher score. Don’t remember anymore of the particulars. Does anyone else remember this game.
Hit and Roll (Real name…
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Hit and Roll (Real name is unknown) This is a game all of the neighborhood kids used to play during the 60’s, in the street in San Jose, California. One person was the batter. He had a regular wooden bat and a tennis ball. The batter had to throw the ball up into the air and hit the ball himself. The rest of the players were out into the street, and yards. If the player hitting the ball hit a pop up and someone caught the ball, then the person who caught the ball got to be the batter. If the ball was not caught, then from where the ball was picked up, that person then walked straight out from that spot to the middle of the street. The batter then had to lay the bat down crosswise in the middle of the street. The player with the ball then would have to roll the ball and try and hit the bat., if this was achieved then the only way the batter could keep his postion as batter was for him to catch the ball in the air when it hit the bat and popped up. If he did not catch the ball, then the person who rolled the ball would get to be the batter until someone else caught a pop up or rolled the ball and the ball was caught after it hit the bat. We had as many as 20 or more people in the street playing, and everyone would scramble to get the chance to catch or roll the ball. Never used any mitts. Didn’t need any. Always used a tennis ball. Janet Eeds
In the late 30s and early…
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In the late 30s and early 40s in Washington Hights (the upper end of Manhattan) we played a game called Baseball Off the Wall. The game was played from one side of the street to the other side of the street. The brick tenament houses had rows of inlaid bricks which was used to bounce the rubber ball off the edge of the brick. If the ball bounced onto the first sidewalk it was a strike. If it bounced on the fly to the first half of the gutter; this side of the manhole cover, it was a single. If it bounced past the manhole cover, but still in the gutter, it was a double. If it bounced on the sidewalk accoss the street it was a triple and if it hit the building it was a home run. If the ball was caught on the fly before it hit the ground, of course, it was an out. The teams were made up of one kid each. We even had leagues going. What fun!
I remember playing SPUD…
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I remember playing SPUD in Brooklyn on 93rd Street between Ditmas and Ave. B. I had 2 older sisters and lots and lots of kids on the block. Being one of the younger kids, I NEVER WON. Does anyone out there remember playing Russian 10? It was a “girls game” played with a Spalding ball.