When we played stickball before WWII in the Sheepshead Bay area of Brooklyn, we used hand me down tennis balls. After a while the fuzzy skin would wear off and the ball had a lot of life. I think but I’m not absolutely sure that the Spaulding company just started to make their tennis ball without the fuzzy cover and sold it as the Spauldeen.
I’m a woman who grew up in Queens in the ’50-’60s, actually in Forest Hills. I’m a manuscript editor who’s just come across the name Pensie Pinkie in a book I’m editing. As a kid I had a number of spaldeen balls, but I never heard of the other, so thanks to all the posters who helped me verify that Pensie Pinkies not only existed, but were rather in vogue, at least in certain circumstances!!
In Astoria, we called it Ace,King,Queen. Asses. up had to be called in the beginning. We also had rules about who chased the ball if it went into the street. Last player to touch the wall had to get the ball. Chips were often called in case the ball went down the sewer. Spaldeens were the preferred ball but sometimes we used a Pennsy Pinky. We also had a rule that if the ball hit a car after only one bounce you could hit “off the car” legally. We the “Ace” got “out” he went to the end of the line, as did anyone else who faltered. I don’t recall if only the Ace scored points but I think so. A good, low “slice” would generally take out a player. We generally used the sidewalk boxes for each players area. Sometimes we would mark it off with chalk but that usually only happened if the landlord with the sidewalk boxes chased us away!
Several years ago, I was trying to explain the game of skully (skullies) to my wife, when I came upon this site. I told my brother and sisters about it, and haven’t been back here since. Recently, we were talking about other games we played in the city (Bronx) and we all remembered the game SLUGS. We never knew it as any other name, no one on the block called it Chinese Handball, Ace-King-Queen, etc. It was always known by us, and everyone around the block, as SLUGS. We lived and played this game around 181 St., on Valentine Ave, and over at P.S. 9/115, which isn’t even called that anymore (damn, imagine that, they changed our school names). Guess I shouldn’t be surprised, it’s been 30 years since I lived and played in the Bronx. Can’t tell you how much I miss playing stickball, and off-the-point (stoop-ball), off-the-wall and skullies (we use to take the school chairs into the hallway or stairs where they had those big iron grids covering the radiators, the grids just the right size to pop the metal chair slide off the bottom of the chairs – which we all know kicked ass over the bottle cap tops, or the bottle rings tops). And then there was kick-the-can, Ringoleavio, and on a hot summer day, we open up those fire hydrants and use a can with the lid removed on both ends to direct volumes of arching water all over… damn, it was great. Anyway… just wanted to share, and will be forwarding this forum to my brother and sisters so that they too can be assured, we weren’t fooling ourselves… it was called SLUGS.
I remeber playing a SPALDEEN GAME in the 60’s. We called it “A my name is” How is worked was that you would bounce the ball to “A my name is alice and my husband’s name is Al, we come from Alabama and we sell apples.”. Each time an “A” word was mentioned you had to cross your leg over the ball while bouncing it. You would continue with the whole alphabet. You would either miss crossing over the ball for one of the words, couldn’t figure out a name beginning with the letter, or miss the ball completely.
I grew up on Gerard Ave. in the Bronx in the late 50’s and early 60’s, one block from the Stadium. We used to play stickball from sewer to sewer by bouncing and hitting or by pitching to the box on the door to the garage for the Bronx County Courthouse. Best game was sewer ball using the manhole covers at the corner of 157th St and Gerard Ave. Home, first, second and third. 4 infielders and sometimes one outfielder. Put the wire trash can lying down across the sewer behind 2nd base. Still lost many balls down that sewer. A really great time! Jeff
louie from brooklyn the spaldeen is the best.We played stickball in the school yard and hit the the ball from one side of the school yard to the other and over the fences.In the steet we counted the sewers one would be a double 2 would be a triple and three would be a homer. the only ball that would do that would be a spaldeen.
In high school we played a form of handball (any number could play) wherein the server threw the ball on a bounce to the wall. The next player (in line) had to hit the ball (on the fly, but usually on no more than one bounce) on the ground first before it hit the wall. Then the next player did the same thing. Etc. Is there actually a name for this form of handball/non-boundry boxball?
I had the great fortune to grow up on Pine Street in Cypress hills in the 60’s-70’s where the fulton street el ran. The typical home plate sewer was almost right in front of my house about 2+ sewers from the corner. I remember the first time a guy hit the el from there playing stickball. It was the cousin of a guy who lived on the block. I was younger than that crowd so I just got to watch those guys. It was no-pitch stickball and it was amazing to watch a guy hit a ball so far. My younger crowd played the sewer closer to the corner so we could always hit the el and that was great. If you caught it falling thru the el the batter was out unless it hit the “shed” – the roof over the platform. You also had to be careful not to hit it over or thru the el and onto the roof of Elton Paint. Or if you hit it up there and a train came and hit the ball down Fulton Street it was still fair.
yes I remember, we had agame that we fondly called “off the point” played like baseball, where one would strike the ball against the cement curb WE lived in the projects in yhe Bronx where each separate building had their own playground, with each having their own dementions and ground rules. it was exciting when two buildings would battle it out, we even had a all star game and a world series, the playgrond would be packed. We would purchase spaldings for only 25 cents.