Category Archives: Spaldeen games

I have been searching for…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
Original author: Russ Braaten [e-mail]
 

I have been searching for Spaldeens on the web since I got on the web. Today I find they are back! Yippie! I don’t remember the Pensie Pinkie unless they were the solid foam rubber balls that would get gouges taken out of them and you see the spongy inside. I hated them. We played stick ball all over the dead ends of Sutton Place in Manhattan. We hated loosing the Spaldeens in the East River. I remember a teacher in High School that always carried a Spaldeen. He had huge forearms. All day long he would squeeze his Spaldeen. I am heading for a sporting goods store now to find my first spaldeen in 30 years

Any old people out there?…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
Original author: Fred Robson [e-mail]
 

Any old people out there? Like 76 going on 77? I am sure that I played with a pink, powdered Spalding that cost a dime before Pearl Harbor. In the Bronx, where else? If you know anything from that era and area, buzz me — FRED ROBSON

I grew up on Linden Avenue…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
Original author: Bob Brown [e-mail]
 

I grew up on Linden Avenue in Belleville, NJ. My neighborhood friends and I all played punchball with the Pensy Pinkie. They were the best!! Back then it was almost a right of passage as each new generation of street urchin claimed rights to the open spaces between parked cars. As others have said the Spaldeen is harder than the Pensy, so better for stick ball. We used wiffle balls for stickball. We had houses with windows on both sides of the street and parents to answer to when we broke those windows. ( It seems like that happened at least once a year.) The Pensy was a great ball just to practice eye/ hand coordination by yourself. Throw it up as high as you could than catch it. Bounce it while you walked. Bounce it against a wall as you walk and than catch it. Bounce it between yourself and a friend and play catch walking down the street to get a Coke at the corner store. Pop it out in front of you with as much backspin as you could and make it come back to you. See who could bounce it the highest. And don’t forget “Keep Away” when you just had to pester one of your friends who just got a new Pensy. I am now 49 and living in North Carolina. I recently picked up the Pink Ball Book that has a Spaldeen in it. ( The first pink ball I’ve seen in 30 years.) I’ve been using it to play with my 11 year old nephew who had never used a pink ball. He loves it now! I like the Spaldeen a lot but if I could find a Pensy I would buy it.

When I was growing up in…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
Original author: Marv Gutkin [e-mail]
 

When I was growing up in the late 50s and early 60s in Bensonhurst Brooklyn, we had own own special stickball field and rules. We hit the ball diagonally across the street. The pitcher threw the ball on a single bounce. He stood on a manhole cover in the center of the intersection of Benson Avenue and Bay 28th Street. Home plate was on the sidewalk in front of the Hebrew School. They did not like us playing there, but we ignored them (even though almost all of us were Jewish). Occasionally the police were called. We would scatter until they left and then would resume the game. Diagonally across the street was the 6 story apartment building where most of us lived. Every grounder or fly ball that was not caught was a single. The only way to get an extra base hit was to hit the ball off the building or onto the building roof. A hit off the 2nd floor was a double, off the 3rd floor a triple, off the 4th floor or higher was a home run. However if the fielder caught the ball on a fly after it hit the building, you were out. It amazes me that we could hit the ball onto the roof of a 6 story building, but every few days somebody would do it. There was a special rule if your batted ball hit the superintendent of our building, who we all hated. That was an automatic grand slam (even if nobody was on base). Our equipment was a “Spaldeen” High Bounce Ball and a broomstick. In later years, thicker professionally made bats began to show up. We called them “tenderizers”. If you used a “tenderizer” it was like current athletes using steroids, you had an unfair advantage. My friends and I would play stickball almost every day the weather was decent. I have great memories of that game.

My stickball was played…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
Original author: Ed [e-mail]
 

My stickball was played in Marine Park in Brooklyn (31st St.) during the 1960’s. We used both Spaldeens and Pensie Pinkies. I remember the Spaldeen had a rough texture, the Pensie was smooth. I preferred the Spaldeen as it afforded a better grip. Anybody out there remember the candy stores on Quentin Road near P.S. 222? – Harry’s, Josie’s, Dis’s, Lil’s. Another bygone institution – but they always had plenty of pink balls for sale. Kids used to play handball against the wall of Harry’s at the corner of 33rd St. and Quentin Rd across from the school. Wouldn’t trade those street games for all the video games in the world – today’s kids are missing out… Ed Dunscombe

I am looking for a manufacture…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
Original author: Edward Illig (kligmond) [e-mail]
 

I am looking for a manufacture of rubber balls for a mailing I want to send out. Preferably a ball not unlike the “Spaldeen” only black and nearer 1-5/8″ dia.—with a white imprint. I thought this would be readily found in the promotional world but apparently rubber balls are a scarcity? I am willing to entertain other types of materials if need be. Help! anyone.

Hi everyone!This is Steve’s…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
Original author: Lou Mercado [e-mail]
 

Hi everyone!This is Steve’s father. I want to thank everyone who wrote all those beautiful stories about him. Ihave not been able to really talk about him in public because I really cant finish a sentence without breaking. This tragedy has really taken an effect on me whenever I think of him and I think of him alot. They say time heals all wounds but I’m 72 years old and I dont think I have enough time in my lifetime to heal this one. I miss him terribly. It is true that in the poem that he wrote stickball brought us closer together, but we were always a close family.It is true though that steve was a very good person,a loving son, a loving husband and a loving father and from all the stories in this column, I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart

I didn’t grow up in NYC….

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
Original author: Josh
 

I didn’t grow up in NYC. Not even close. But one summer, 10 years back, stickball was a passion of mine. I grew up in PA. My brother, two friends, and I took broom stick handles or shovel handles and discarded and used tennis balls to play our passion that summer of ’95: stickball. We played on tennis courts at The Park where we lived. Home plate was the corner of the court where the lines met. There were no bases; it was more like home run derby. The man playing outfield was dubbed the “robber”. He was stationed in the doorway at the other end of the court where the third base line would have been, had we bases. He had to stay in the treshold there until the ball made contact with the stick. He then was allowedd to field the fly, and if he caught it, that was an automatic three outs. The other player was obviously the pitcher. We never really stressed strategic pitching, though; the competition was between the robber and the batter. You had to hit the ball on a fly out of the first court or it was an out. If you hit the ball into the next court with out it being caught, that was a 1. If it was hit into the next court but over the tennis net, that was a 2. If you hit the ball over the second fence, it was a three. And, if you were lucky enough to hit the ball up onto the “bumps” ( a steep hill containing a road at the top with speed bumps), which none of us , even the stronger ones, were ever able to do, then that was a six. My brother, the strongest, came closest. I am sure that those reading this wouldn’t agree in calling it stickball; it wouldn’t have the nostalgia attached to it that you or they know. I had my own version of stickball. And for the summer of ’95 it was a passion of mine and my friends that we will never forget: the smashing of the dry-rotted tennis balls; the day I caught a fly over my back with my left hand; the time when it rained so much that there were inches of water on the court; that fact that I was so tan that summer my skin could’ve passed for leather. Stickball to us was exhiliration. It was the reason we assembled at noon ever day. I didn’t have a job then, I was 16. I had a passion, though. It was stickball.