Category Archives: Stickball

Hi players! My name is Sonia…

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

Hi players! My name is Sonia Gonzalez. I shot footage this past summer of the World Series 2000 games for a documentary I’m doing on stickball. Wanted to give you an upate: i am presently editing together a trailer or a “teaser”, a shorter version of the entire documentary for fundraising to finish editing. I’ve submitted it to Spike Lee’s company and to HBO Documentary. I hope to have a finished one-hour documentary by the spring. Please contact me at for future screenings. Thank you for all your wonderful stories and for the incredible legacy of stickball. blessings, Sonia

I grew up playing stickball…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
Original author: LongBall
 

I grew up playing stickball in the bronx. I bought my bats at the sports store right at the 242nd street station. We played a great games with simple rules: Fast Pitch (balls and strikes like baseball) Strike zone drawn on a wall – from the shortest mans knees to the tallest mans numbers and as wide as the broadest man. We played on a very narrow field. about 40 degrees between the lines. The outfield wall was about 200 feet away and about 10 feet tall. Three outs an inning. Any ground ball fielded by the pitcher before the mound (except weak hits) were outs. Any fly or line drive cought was an out. Ground ball past the pitcher was a single. Liner or po that landed in front of the outfield was a double. Off the wall was a triple. Over the wall … gone! Ghost runners would advance on every hit – they did not need to be forced. A double scored a man from second even if no one was on first. And we developed as many rule as possible to make the game as much like baseball as possible. A foul tip strike three was an out if it hit the zone. With a runner on third you could tag up on a fly to the outfield, the runner scored if the outfield did not throw a strike from wherever he cought it. A wild pitch was a pitch that hit the window on the wall with the strike zone. etc… These were the rule that we spent days playing by and making up. They made for a great way to spend summer afternoons. Thanks

I wanted to drop you a line…

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

I wanted to drop you a line and say how impressed I was with this web site. I know that it takes a lot of patience and perseverance. My hat is off to all who helped put this site together. I AM the Gringo that played in many of your tournaments since 1983. I Am a native New Yorker from Brooklyn and played with the Miami Sharks. I always felt comfortable and enjoyed the hospitality that New York has shown me and my family. I wanted to share my memories and web site with you. If you any suggestions and can help with promoting this lost game here in Miami, please don’t hesitate to contact me. WWW.STICKBALL.NET Ted Wozny 305-688-7464

my friends and i used to…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
Original author: Anonymous
 

my friends and i used to play bounce pitch sitckball at the park down the street from us. because there was no wall behind it we couldnt actually throw fast pitch which would have been better but you know…im a lefthander and there was no fence in right field so we(lefty’s) had to hit it three times as far than the righty’s would to get a homerun. it would have to go into the neighbors yard to be a homerun and that was about 250 feet away. nobody had ever come close before until one day i stepped up to bat and crushed a homerun into the middle of the yard. nobody would get the ball because there was this huge german sheppard in the yard so they made me go get it(the you hit it u get it rule)so i had to go get the ball and i almost got eaten alive during the process. the dog chased me to the fence and as i was hurdling the fence, it took a chunk out of my pants. i was the hero for the day. we kept playing until it was dark like always thanx to me. every once in a while my friends bring that day up when we are talking about the old days.

I started on the Grand Concourse…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
Original author: Steward Tony Pacheco [e-mail]
 

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

Spaulding balls ruled in…

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

Spaulding balls ruled in the Bronx during the 60″s and 70’S. With the introduction of injecting helium in the ball, we had some fast, bouncing handball games. I miss the days of stickball in the streets, Can someone make a game for playstation. I’ll buy it!!

Hey I am 48yrs old and for…

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

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?