Category Archives: Other Spaldeen games

I grew up in the Bronx in…

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I grew up in the Bronx in the 1950’s on 146th Street and Brook Avenue. We use to play “Off The Wall” with a Spaldeen. We would stand close to the wall and throw the ball against it to propel it across the street to hit the wall on the other side and you would run bases. Catching the ball off the wall was an out, three outs per inning. If I remember ( I am an active 67 year old) we had three men per team, one on first and third and one in the outfield. You could also “hit” a line drive to the infield to get on base.

out here in the sticks on…

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out here in the sticks on LI we played a variation of chinese hand ball that we called suicide. it was the same ace, king queen setup, but we played against a bbrick wall and the surface was usually grass. you had to throw the ball in an effort to make the next guy miss. if he missed, he had to run to the wall and tag up. the other players would try and retrieve the ball and blast it at the runner. if you got hit before you tagged up, you got an out. three outs and you went “asses up”. Suicide. Usually resulted in some bleeding and the occasionally broken bone from running into the wall too hard or falling after being blasted in the liver by a spaldeen.

Grew up in Clason Point/Soundview…

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Grew up in Clason Point/Soundview section of South Bronx in the 60s’. Played stickball at P.S. 69 (Beat that P.S). We played stickball in the street, open fields, and fast pitched against the wall against a chalk filled-in box(No strike disputes “see the chalk on the ball.. shut up”)At old 69 we would “chip in” and get as many Spaldeens as we could to get up a good game. We would stick em in a fence and line em up, no more in the fence no more game. Pensie Pinkies were for girls, sorry. No self- respecting stickball player would be caught dead with a “pinkie”. We also played Ace King Queen, stoop-ball and box-ball(My house had the best stoop and wall on the block. Also played booties up, skully in the street or on the sidewalks. Crack top, Johnny on the Pony,Ringoleaveo…Wouldnt’trade those memories for anything…..

Grew up at West Fordham Road…

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Grew up at West Fordham Road (Tolentine parrish) in the late fiftes and early sixties. Played outside all day. Skelly was a favorite, also box ball (each player took a box on the sidewalk, a total of four in a square), stoop ball and stick ball. Kept busy all day. No electronics, but plenty of fun. Fond memories!

Hail to Brownsvillenites,…

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Hail to Brownsvillenites, circa 1947-59, who broke in more Spauldeen balls than the Brooklyn Bums hitting warmups. Fancy this site, encouraging contributors to reminisce, expecially me, a long way from the Brooklyn of today. (Read Montreal, Quebec, Canada.) I have a Pinkie ball, thanks to a cousin of mine who remembered me with the import, and I workout throwing it against walls at times during this, my 69th year. NO SWEAT!, or better yet, SWEAT! My favourite street ball was and still is the Spauldeen. A sweet hunk of thing (compared to the Pinkie), whose new rubber surface I can still smell. Yes, more bounce to the ounce it holds for me. Merci!

So, I read the July 1 article…

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So, I read the July 1 article in The NY Times on the joys of streetgames, and was immediately transported back to the Bronx, circa 1958. We used to play a spaldeen game called “Captain.” The essentials included a high, smooth wall (we had one located next to the entrance of the now defunct Salvation Army Training School), cement “boxes,” and of course, the ubiquitious spaldeen (purchased from Moishe’s Candy Store, natch!). One kid would be the “captain” and stand in the first box, one box away from the wall. The rest of us (no specified number…as many kids could play as there were boxes) would form a line alongside the captain, one player per box. A reverse form of “handball” would ensue, with the ball bouncing in the box and THEN hitting the wall. The ball would then bounce into any other box, and the kid owning that space would slap the ball onto the pavement, having it hit the wall, and fall into another player’s box. If the player missed the ball, or hit it out of bounds, he/she would have to go to the end of the line, the rest of the players then moving up one box, closer to the “captain.” The goal, of course, was to get the “captain” OUT, so that you could attain that golden position. Gentler than handball, “Captain” nonetheless promoted similar skills in strategizing, strength (slapping the ball with greater or lesser energy) and dealing with serendipity (not seeing a pebble on the ground could cause your well placed shot to go seriously awry). Most of all, it was great fun. And for the few moments that you were “Captain” a kid from the Bronx learned the basics of power…gained with some skill and effort, and lost because of a lousy pebble.

I grew up in Richmond Hill…

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I grew up in Richmond Hill NY, playing skelly every day, come summer time in Smokey Park in the early 70’s. I remember using crayons and the rim of the glass beer bottle to make a skelly cap, but there was one more way of doing it that was my favorite. We’d take a twist off beer cap, find a plastic soda cap, and some small pieces of glass for weight. I’d dig the plastic insert piece out of the soda cap. The glass went inside the beer bottle cap and the plastic piece was fitted in side the beer bottle cap, over the glass upside down, to hold the glass in place.I remember always giving the new cap a real good rubbing on the ground to roughen it up. I was a good shooter and didnt want it flying anywhere I didnt want it to. I have taught my kids how to play all the street games I can still remember. Their favorites are: I Declare War, Box Ball, Chinese Hand Ball and Stoop ball and Red Rover.

I grew up in the Pomonok…

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I grew up in the Pomonok project across from Queens College in the ’50’s and early ’60’s. Where we were Pensies were rarely available, though known of. Any of you remember that spaldeens varied somewhat in pressure. I’d go through the box and find the hardest ones I could. They could be punched further, hit further, but their principle advantage was in handball, if you were over six feet. It was an equalizer when playing with a short guy with better skills. In close play, a low hit would send it caroming over his reach. By the way Geoff, you sure could split a spaldeen with a broom stick or those slightly larger stickball bats that were sold in some places. A baseball bat compresses the ball too much and creates a greater area of contact making a split less likely. We used to turn the splits inside out and throw them. they moved like maniacal frisbees and were almost impossible to catch. Any of you remember three box baseball, a pavement game we played when it was just too hot and humid to play anything else?

I grew up in Laurelton, L.I,…

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I grew up in Laurelton, L.I, N.Y. in the 50’s and 60’s. I used to get the ‘Pinkys’ for 5 cents and the Spauldeens for 10 cents. The Pinkys were softer, smoother and had that great new rubber smell. They would hand bounce better than the Spauldeen. The words and logo on the Pinky was in dark blue. I guess to keep them newer longer, I used to fill in the words/logo as they wore off with a blue BIC. The Pinky had a thin black seam and that was it’s weakness. Many times a solid hit with a wood bat would split the Pinky right on that seam. The Spauldeens were rough texture, ‘chalky’ bounced less but ‘never broke’. In all fairness, we kids never used stickball bats, but used heavy wood Baseball bats. Thank You.