Tag Archives: Pennsy Pinkie
Spaldeens. I was just telling…
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Spaldeens. I was just telling my wife about Skelly, and how back in East New York Brooklyn Sutter Avenue projects we used to cram the everyday essentials into a pair of Lee or Wrangler jeans: Bazooka gum Baseball cards Wooden metal tipped top with string Skelly top (I preferred the wax filled cap, mostly due to the fact I could never skim the beer bottle neck just right to get the sweet glass cap.) Spaldeen Somewhere, back in NYC there has to be all the Spaldeens that were roofed, hit between building cracks, sewer bound, between the spokes of our old bikes, and those broken ones used by Mom and Dad to cover sharp objects and second as couch leg lifters. When I see a piece of Bazooka gum today, I think of how we used to break it in four, share the comic, chew up the gum, and place it on the end of a broken mop or broom handle and fish out the coins and subway tokens to buy penny candy. Fish enough coins, you got a new Spaldeen. Pensie-Pinkies were foamier, as I recall. When they got chipped, well, there went the homeruns of the punchball team.
Of course the spaldeen (especially…
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Of course the spaldeen (especially the much-beloved #4, although #2 was also good) was always better than the pinky, although that pinky could really fly when hit with a bat! Most of you can probably relate, but I wish I could explain to my friends here in the Midwest what it was like growing up on E. 15th St. near Kings Highway in the ’70s. Our street was full of kids and we played all the time: johnny on the pony, stoopball, stickball, hockey on roller skates, scully, red rover, i declare war (losers always “went under the moon”), wiffle ball, ringaleavio. And the games in the schoolyards, like handball, off the wall, paddleball. There’s got to be a million spaldeens on the roof at PS 199 where I went and all the other schools, too. It was like a soap opera, too.
I have been searching for…
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I have been searching for Spaldeens on the web since I got on the web. Today I find they are back! Yippie! I don’t remember the Pensie Pinkie unless they were the solid foam rubber balls that would get gouges taken out of them and you see the spongy inside. I hated them. We played stick ball all over the dead ends of Sutton Place in Manhattan. We hated loosing the Spaldeens in the East River. I remember a teacher in High School that always carried a Spaldeen. He had huge forearms. All day long he would squeeze his Spaldeen. I am heading for a sporting goods store now to find my first spaldeen in 30 years
I grew up on Linden Avenue…
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I grew up on Linden Avenue in Belleville, NJ. My neighborhood friends and I all played punchball with the Pensy Pinkie. They were the best!! Back then it was almost a right of passage as each new generation of street urchin claimed rights to the open spaces between parked cars. As others have said the Spaldeen is harder than the Pensy, so better for stick ball. We used wiffle balls for stickball. We had houses with windows on both sides of the street and parents to answer to when we broke those windows. ( It seems like that happened at least once a year.) The Pensy was a great ball just to practice eye/ hand coordination by yourself. Throw it up as high as you could than catch it. Bounce it while you walked. Bounce it against a wall as you walk and than catch it. Bounce it between yourself and a friend and play catch walking down the street to get a Coke at the corner store. Pop it out in front of you with as much backspin as you could and make it come back to you. See who could bounce it the highest. And don’t forget “Keep Away” when you just had to pester one of your friends who just got a new Pensy. I am now 49 and living in North Carolina. I recently picked up the Pink Ball Book that has a Spaldeen in it. ( The first pink ball I’ve seen in 30 years.) I’ve been using it to play with my 11 year old nephew who had never used a pink ball. He loves it now! I like the Spaldeen a lot but if I could find a Pensy I would buy it.
My stickball was played…
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My stickball was played in Marine Park in Brooklyn (31st St.) during the 1960’s. We used both Spaldeens and Pensie Pinkies. I remember the Spaldeen had a rough texture, the Pensie was smooth. I preferred the Spaldeen as it afforded a better grip. Anybody out there remember the candy stores on Quentin Road near P.S. 222? – Harry’s, Josie’s, Dis’s, Lil’s. Another bygone institution – but they always had plenty of pink balls for sale. Kids used to play handball against the wall of Harry’s at the corner of 33rd St. and Quentin Rd across from the school. Wouldn’t trade those street games for all the video games in the world – today’s kids are missing out… Ed Dunscombe
Okay, couldn’t sleep tonight,…
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Okay, couldn’t sleep tonight, my mind racing on the many games I loved playing in my youth in Deepdale (Little Neck) Queens in the 1950’s-early 60’s. Want to document some of these for my grandkids, who probably won’t know a street game from a milk machine (‘member those, anyone?). Thrilled to find this website – way to GO! …So, the girls in my “court” (WWII veterans’ garden apartments, with sections built around a central grass area, all over Queens, especially Glen Oaks & Little Neck) loved both Spauldeens AND Pensie Pinkies. I remember at one time each costing about a quarter at our local candy store. And fishing them out of the sewers could be a whole day’s frustrating & exhilirating challenge – mainly with unbent hangers, made into a fishing circle at one end. Anyone remember a game played by throwing the ball high against a brick wall, and doing a variety of activities before catching it? Like 1 = clap one time; 4 = 4 jumping jacks, etc? Can’t remember what it was called – maybe Russian ______????
I remember summers in my…
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I remember summers in my neighborhood and how we couldn’t wait for school to get out so we could spend all our time at the park! The park on the conduit in South Ozone Park was our place! Boy we really had fun there! We did everything there, we played handball until the wee hours of the morning when we were teenagers, we could sit on the benches and play chess or checkers on those tables that had the boards set right in them, I thought that was the coolest thing, you didn’t need to bring anything to the park just your bike and friends! I now live in Arizona and have lived in Utah for years and the first time I saw a park in Utah I thought how strange it was that there were no parks like we had and I felt sad that the kids were missing alot of fun! I long for those hot summer days sometimes when life was easier and all that concerned us was a good Pensy-Pinkie or spalding and if we could get to the park before the big guys so we could get a court.I loved growing up in New York and wouldn’t trade it for the world!
I grew up in Long Beach…
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I grew up in Long Beach on Long Island in the early 60s. As I recall the Pinsie Pinky was .19 and the Spaldeen .29 The Spaldeen was more durable but the Pinky really flew if you hit it on the nose with a good stickball bat. Now I have a 14 year old and we live in Mission Viejo Califonia. I don’t understand it, he’s a Yankee fan and loves to play stickball with me at least twice a week as long as my 51 year old arm can take it. I had to have relatives from NY send us a real stckball bat from Spalding and a few dozen balz. These are great memories to share and make with him. …Tom
LOVE this site! Found it…
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LOVE this site! Found it while looking for info on a game called “Kings”, which I find is also called Ace-King-Queen. Funny how the names mutate…. In Bayonne, NJ in the 60’s, the Pennsy Pinky was considered too soft for almost all uses; we were Spaldeen loyalists to a boy. Also: anyone who knows what a “money bug” was, e-mail me (corydalus1956 [at] yahoo [dot] com)