Cliff, If you are who I think you are, I remember facing you in Little League and having a heck of a time hitting your stuff. Lots of spins. Don’t remember Stickball Steve. PLease let us know if you find out anymore info about him “The Pied Piper of Stickball.” It’s a nice image. Sorry to hear that he passed on.
I never found out if there was a law against playing stickball but if the cops droveby a game, they would confiscate the stick, stick it in a manhole cover hole in order to break it, or throw it in the squad car. They never bothered us if we were playing curbball or punchball. I guess the offense was playing with a stick. The Leader was a cheaper ball, white-gray in color, and without the bounce and resiliancy of a Spaldeen. I never heard of Pennsy Pink in the late Thirties and early Forties.
Stickball, in Huber Heights, Ohio used to be alive and well at Sewerfront (an old church yard with a sewer as a homerun mark. Usually played 5 on 5 with invisible men on base. Hitting the ball across Rittenhouse Drive onto the porches of houses was always a target. We did lose many tape covered balls that way.
Does anyone remember Stickball Steve from Rochdale Village. Steve recently passed away from cancer. Steve was a good freind of my brother. Steve always carried a stickball bat and whenever he came around a game was formed. I do not remember much about Steve, however, it was not until recently that I realized how much he added to the fun of my youth. In many ways he was the pied piper of stickball. Please respond if you have memories of him.
July,1939,The Bronx. Six of us were playing a pickup game on Daley Ave. (between Tremont and 178th St)right in front of the “Mad Doctor’s” house because it always ticked him off. This day he called the cops. As the Squad car rounded the corner, someone yelled, “Cheese it, the Bulls” We scattered to various spots on the sidewalk and tried to look innocent, so that the cops would just keep going. But they didn’t. The stopped in front of the Doctor’s house who came out and began fingering the guys. The cops herded five of the six ( and the stick) into the Squad Car and hauled them down to the 48th Precinct Station. The 6th player (me) had ducked into a doorway and escaped notice. As soon as the coast was clear, I (like Paul Revere)sounded the alarm to a few parents who had to pay a nickle (each way) to take the Tremont Ave. trolley to the police station and “bail out” their kids. The lectures and the warning didn’t impress us because we were back the next day, right in front of the Doctor’s house playing stickball, curbball, stoopball, slugball, and/or boxball. In those days, we paid 5c for a Leader and 15c for a Spaldeen. One day we found a golf ball and used it to play stoopball until I got a great hit that broke a neighbor’s window. We scattered because we knew she was an old grouch and wouldn’t give back the ball.
Punchball, running bases, kickball, and stickball were the popular games in our parkinglot behind our apartment building. The playing field was an asphalt driveway that was actually wide enough to place bases around the “field”. The driveway was on an incline and homebase was at the bottom of the driveway, so you were always kicking or punching the ball up the hill. The Spaldeen ball was the classic ball for punchball. I would always renew my supply at the candystore, but I would only use my one and only ball until it was forever lost (in the sewer, a car ran over it). My kids are 10 and 12 years old now. At that age I was playing in the street all the time, nothing was organized, no carpools… the housephone rang and someone told you to come outside in the back..We played for hours, going from one game to another, until Rudy, the super, would come chasing after us yelling in his thick German accent, scaring the crap out of us, and breaking up the games.. only for the moment. And then there was Building Tag, where the doorman was base The stories are endless, but I really want to find out where I could buy a Spaldeen ball? Laurie, orginally from Riverdale, the Bronx, now in Shaker Heights, Ohio.