Category Archives: Spaldeen games

Hello All, My mom phoned…

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Hello All, My mom phoned tonight asking on how to play a childhood game she called Seven up involving bouncing a ball against a wall and doing various tasks in numerical order. Ubfortunately she couldnt remember the tasks and whatnot. I assured her I would search the net and find out so here I am. I beleive some inputs on this sight referring to Russian seven or Russian 10/12 are the same game she was asking about. If anyone could email me , moonmellonpie [at] aol [dot] com, with the complete rules I would most appreciate it. Thanks all, Maria

I started on the Grand Concourse…

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I started on the Grand Concourse in the early 60’s and never stopped having fun after that. Stickball, Skellies, Johnny on the Pony, Kick the can, watching the greasers and the new hippies stare each other down. My twin brother and I were nice Puerto Rican boys in an Irish / Jewish neighborhood. All my friends were Shemtobs, McNallens, ORielly, Buffa, Mehan, Schwartz. It was great, I learned a whole bunch of different cuss words. We had fake wars with sling shots and bottle caps. We would explore boiler rooms and roof tops and would make flashlights out of Bean cans with a lit candle burning the tin till it was too hot to hold. We could watch the parades on the Grand Concourse from any stoop on the street, All the US flags would wave from the windows. We had about 30 kids playing stickball on Marcy place and many of us would roof spaldings atop PS 88 on Sheridan. It was the perfect Stickball Street. We could also open Johnny pumps with a stickball bat and a coat hanger and spend hours grinding bean cans on the concrete to get the tops off.(boy were we dumb) We also built scooters with old metal skates and old milk boxes. Build tunnels in the mountains of snow that was built up by sanitation. We would sing Beatles tunes to our 3rd grade girlfriends and run like heck when they tried to kiss us. We all formed the Bronx Super Heroes club. I was 007 – James Bond and my brother Karl was Robin “The boy blunder” Between all the Bronx buildings were miles and miles of alleys and basements were we all would explore. We also would walk on Jerome Ave. to go Ice-skating or go to the Concourse hotel to see Mickey Mantle as well as the Original NY Giants in the winter. Then one summer every one moved to co-op City and from that time on it was never the same. That was until I discovered Handball and life in the Bronx was good again 🙂 I live in Dallas now and doing well. My kids are popular here because they are from the Bronx. It’s cool here. People don’t know whether to love us or hate us. In any event, when we have to be heard, no one stands in our way. Thank you my Bronx. I could not imagine my life without you in it. You are now in me and I will share you with all. We miss you all! Schools: PS, 44, 88, 90, 67, Catholic: Christ the King, Sacred Heart HS (Don

Hey I am 48yrs old and for…

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Hey I am 48yrs old and for some odd reason I was talking to my wife about some games I played up in Baltimore as a child. We would buy a penn pinky and play on the steps of the school house. If you were good enough you would slam the ball on the corner of the the steps which would make that ball fly, otherwise if you hit the ball on the flat surface of the step yuo would have a ground ball. We chalked in bases and played just like stickball. I beleived we called this game curb ball…Did other places play this way?

When my sister and I were…

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When my sister and I were kids in Alberta in the 60’s we used to play a game where we put what we called an”Indian Rubber Ball” in an old nylon and then would stand with our back to the wall of the house and recite: “Hello, hello, hello SIR. Can you come out to play SIR? No SIR. Why SIR? Because I caught a cold SIR. Where did you catch your cold SIR? At the North Pole SIR. What were you doing there SIR? Catching a polar bear SIR. How many did you catch SIR?” All the while bouncing the ball from side to side. When we said SIR we had to raise the appropriate leg and bounce under that side. At the end, we would answer the last question by bouncing under our legs as many times as possible. We tried to get higher and higher each time.

The program on WNYC brought…

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The program on WNYC brought back many memories of Brooklyn, Quentin Road > between West 4th and 5th street. We played all the games you mentioned and > some variants. Playing Association with a rolled up Daily News or Mirror > for a football or square or triangle using a spaldeen. The dificulty with > square was that Mrs. Deutch had a window between second and third and we > had to avoid a tag as well as the water she threw at us. > We also played Chinese handball both with our hands and and our FEET. We > also had a novel form of stoop ball. It was played on Mr Bock’s “stoop” > with a spaldeen and invisible runners. The stoop was not steps but a > “correctly” slanted wall surrounding his lawn. Mr. Bock was also an a > constant thorn in our side by calling the police. > During WWII we play “Commando Tactics”. At dark we would meet and find a > route thru the yards of a neighborhood. It was more than once people in > their homes would come out to see who was there. It was a miracle that we > had no ‘wounded”. > Thanks for the memories!! >