Having read online how hard they were to find, I ordered six spaldeens on e-bay. Then I was buying some groceries at a Fred Meyer store (I’m in SW Washington state) went over to the sporting goods on the off-chance and they had boxes and boxes of spaldeens $1.99 each and boxes of some off-brand ball- not a pensie- for $1 each. So if there’s a Fred Meyer anywhere near you, check it out. Boy was I surprised!
I was on the employee bus tonight and brought up pensie pinky balls. and the games we played. A my name is Alice…. there were 4 other women all aged about 40-55 ish and NOT ONE knew what I was talking about. Grantd I live in Houston now, but some of these women are from back east, like PA. They all thought I was nuts! So here I am Googling it for them.
In the East Bronx in the ’50s, Spaldeens were the ball of choice; Pennsy Pinkies were second choice. Ethan Robbins could punch a Spaldeen over the outfield fence. I was in awe. But I have a question. Did they always say “Spalding High-Bounce Ball” on them? I seem to remember them saying “Spaldeen”.
Played stick ball at PS 46 in Bayside (Queens) N.Y. from 1960-1967. The ‘field’ consisted of the fence (used for the handball court) behind home plate (that was drawn on the ground), a fence from home plate with a distance of approximately 125-175 feet (it ran on a diagonal) and a fence (that was the foul pole) that ran down the right side of the field until it met the other fence in the right corner of the field. The foul pole on the left side of the field was a post on the fence approximately 175 feet from home plate. The pitcher stood approximately 50-60 feet away from home plate. There was no running. The batter would hit the ball and the result would be as follows: 1. A grounder caught by the pitcher was an out. 2. A grounder not caught by the pitcher was a single. 3. A fly ball caught by the pitcher was an out. 4. A fly ball that landed between the pitcher and the fence was a double. 5. A fly ball that hit the fence was a triple. 6. A fly ball over the fence was a home run. I used a number of bats that I purchased for 59 or 69 cents at the local candy store. These bats came in a variety of colors, were regulation size and width and of course they had the unmistakable black tape wrapped around the upper portion of the bat. The ball used was either a Spaldeen or a Pensie Pinkie. What a great game.
I grew up in East New York and Howard Beach. We played punchball in both neighborhoods,but not as Peter B. described above. Punchball, which we prefered the Pensie Pinkie for due to it’s being softer was basically played the same as baseball (on the street, in parking lot, even a driveway between houses when we were younger (in this version if you hit the wall on the fly you were out). The “batter” punched the ball (anyway he pleased), but overhand produced longer hits. In H.B. we played a game called “slapball” which was similar to Peter’s version of punchball, but played with out 2nd base. The field was a small triangle, the pitcher who stood in the center of the triangle had to pitch the ball over the plate, underhanded, on one bounce. The batter could wait for a pich he like, when the ball was hit, openhanded, it could not pass the line between 1st and 3rd or the batter was out. All other rules were the same as baseball (no stealing). The Spaldeen was our preferred ball for stickball since it was more durable. Of course most of the time we played with any ball we could fish out of a sewer, or pull out of a drainpipe that we’d climb up to.
Any self respecting kid that grew up in the 50-60s in St.Albans, Queens and went to PS 118 knows that Pensie-Pinkies rule. Its called pensie-pinkie because it had a keystone stamped on the pink ball. The state symbol for Pensylvania is the keystone. The nick name for Pensylvania is the “Keystone state”-hence Pensie short for Pensylvania. I found this site looking for Skelly/Scully rules. Great site. I played all the usual street games including stoop ball, chinese handball, stickball etc. A kid couldn’t live without a Pensie. ANYONE HEAR OF RUNNING BASES??? Two “basemen” on either side of the street and a bunch of kids in the middle. The object was to tag the kids out as they ran back and forth between the two bases. It was like a run down in baseball. One of the few co-ed games at the time. Girls were so icky back then. This site brought back many wonderful memories.
I grew up a suburb kid in California, have heard of stickball, never played. I loved reading about all your fond memories of these games, makes me wish I had been around to play too. I would like to guess that the origin of the name Pensie Pinky comes from the fact that the Pennsylvania Keystone was printed on the ball, Pensie might be a nickname for Pennsylvania (?).