Category Archives: Spaldeen games
The bronx in the 50’s…”lefty…
In the southern part of…
In the southern part of Brownsville,”spaldeens” were the choice over “pennsy Pinkies”. When we could not afford to buy a Spaldeen (at 25 cents), we’d settle for a Pennsy Pinky. There were days we’d lose 5-6 Spaldeens under moving vehicles or to the sewers of the city. There was no more comforting logo than Spalding’s on their light-pink colored ball. It had more consistency to the bounce than the Pennsy Pinkie. It was like comparing Fox’s U-Bet Chocolate syrup to Bosco in Brownsville, Brooklyn.
The pensie pinky, made…
I played box baseball in…
I played box baseball in the Linden Projects (East New York, Brooklyn). We also played boxball. For boxball we used four boxes (2×2) and each player got a box. Then we would tap the ball back and forth between the players until someone couldn’t return the ball into one of the other boxes or couldn’t hit it before it hit the floor twice. There was also another game which used 5 boxes (in a straight row). First you have to make the ball bounce once in the #1 box. Then once in the #1 box and once in the #2 box & so on until you did all 5 boxes.
We played all the Philly…
We played all the Philly street games in Strawberry Mansion(North Philly). Drain pipe climbing was a necessary skill that was developed as a result of “roofing” half balls hit up there or the whole pimples gone there in ledgeball or “ledgies”. The roof contained a renewable resource for halfball as I recall. I now live in Arizona where summer temperatures in the full sun can go over 150 degrees at 6 feet above the ground. Lucky that we’re are next to the Colorado River at the Mexican and Calif. borders- but no street games here in the summer. The winters are ok about 70, no rain and sunny with our visitors playing golf. Too bad for them not to play halfball instead. regards to all- Fred in Yuma
Russian 7 and 10 players–we…
hi i think you should…
0n April 29th and April 30th…
0n April 29th and April 30th 2000 we had our 5th annual Florida oldtimers stickball tournament. It was held at Stickball Boulevard in North Miami. We had many members of the Stickball Hall of Fame playing such as George “Cherokee” Aviles, Henry “Papi” Caban, Ralph Naranjo, Warren “Wally” Rivera, Junior Rosario, Little Cherokee Ruiz, and Eduardio “Wally” Torres. We had enough ball players t o field 4 teams. Our oldest player was 78 years old by the name of Chickie Santiago. We had a great weekend.
How about “Categories”?…
How about “Categories”? We drew a court on the ground similar to hopscotch (“potsy”) with two rows of rectangular boxes, 5 in one row, 5 in the other, and inside the boxes were different categories like girls, boys, cars, teachers, flowers, actors, actresses, and oh I forget the others. We rolled the ball up from the bottom left box and stepped into that first box (“Girls”) and picked up the ball from within the box. When we picked the ball up, we said, “Girls are such as…” and we’d say girls names, one for each box (Barbara, Susie, Mary,…) and bounce the ball once and step into each of the boxes in sequence from bottom left and up and over to the second row (no stepping on the lines!) until you get to the last box and then stepped out with one last name and bounce. On the second turn we rolled the ball from the bottom left row and rolled it up to the second category: “Boys”. Back then it was always, “Boys are such as: Paul, John, George, Ringo…” right?! The challenge came when you got to the second row, because if you were up to the last few boxes, you had to roll the ball up from the right column slowly enough to catch up to it by stepping quickly through all the other boxes from the left row and picking the ball up in the box you were up to. I think actresses was usually last and you only had to name one to step out.