In South Philly the halfball base hits were: 1) Single if ball makes far curb without being caught 2) Double if ball hits first floor windows and not caught 3) Tripple if ball hits second floor windows and not caught 4) Home Run ball makes it to the roof and stays up there. Every one aspired to be called a roofer. One swing per at bat, wiff or foul ball your out.
I grew up in South Philly around 21st and Mifflin, born in 1953. For some crazy reason I could never figure out, we had names for some games others referred to differently. Sometimes I thought it was an East of Broad, West of Broad thing. For example, instead of Chink we called it Dinky. Instead of Hide the Belt we called it Hot Beans. Instead of Jailbreak we called it Releasio. Any input on anyone for this? Also, anyone remember making Bottle Top Shooters?
really neat memories but also there were many card games, not playing cards. knuckles: for example, I remember the loser getting his hand sandwiched between any number of cards on the top and pottom and stumped with their opponents shoe or choppers in which you received x amount of chops on your knuckles with the entire deck. game played around 7th and catharine. south philly
A big shout out from Jim Marino way out in Chicago. Do you remember the Broadway Movie, Colonial, Savoia. Gone but not forgotten. I alway try to get to Geno’s for a cheese steak when we get back for a visit. Ever try to explain what and how you play halfball. Not very easy. This site is great. Other games. How about war games with bottle cap/top guns. Those guns made from clothes pins, sticks and rubber bands. Lots of epic battles on the streets of South Philly.And also lots of “you’ll shoot somebody’s eye out. Although I remember a few scrapes and cuts, no eyes were ever shot out. Also when we really had no money we plaed a game called Kitten and stick. Sometimes using a 6 inch piece of hose or a 6 inch stick sharpened on both ends. The object was to hit one end of the stick and cause it to bounce in the air, then hit it while in the air. Distance made the hits or scores. All of these were great. Stay in touch. Kitty where are you?
I grew up in the 70s in South Philly, and yes, we played this game, but we called it “Refrigerator”. It was one of the games played at dusk, because we had to stay “in front of the house”. We would stand against the wall of a house which was on the side of the street without parking. The person who was It would stand, opposite us, against a parked car. Then, we would all run to the car and back. We would say “In my refrigerator, I have some_____ (milk, dirty socks, etc).”
Does anyone remember this game? It was played from curb to curb. Any number of players could play. They would all line up on the street curb and shout “What’s in the icebox”? A caller would shout out items like “eggs”, everyone would run to the other curb. But the caller would also say things like “chair”. If anyone ran after hearing this, they would be “out”. This went on until there was one person left (who did not run or even move on a word that was not found in an icebox). I grew up in South Philly and remember it well. I am finding this site very nostalgic, a trip back to the late 50’S. Thanks.
I think this site is great.I also think it’s great that you have such an organized collection of rules.I don’t rememberall these.I played this game so much from 1945-1950.I see from the site they are still playing it.Could you tell me where or post it on the site I’d love to watch if not compete.I can still play.and I think i still have my tops or i’ll make some.I neglected to say I played this game in South Philly [Graysferry section] and West Philly.
Igrew up in South Philly Graysferry sectionand we use toplay what you call Skullys. We use to call it street checkers the same as Al politowlski called them.That was back in 1940 and I don’t remember all those rules. We use to use the liquor bottle tops and cut the neck off when we could find them . No body would let you use theirs and you didn’t loose them.The looser of the game first man out had to put the winners name on a shirt with bottle caps and the cork inside the cap. We moved to West Philly they called it the same, street checkers but some rules were different. I’ve been telling my wife about this game, now ican finally show it to her thanks to you. Ihave acouple of liquor tops and i would love to shoot agame.IfIloose I’ll put your name on a shirt for you.
I grew up in South Philly, in the 70s/early 80s … I STILL HAVE A PIMPLE BALL !!! I kept it knowing that one day, people all over would be looking for one — wish we could still buy em. I remember learning ‘Chink’ on the corners. We simply called it ‘Chink’ and it was the most simple, fun, yet competitive games ANYWHERE !! We played it on the corner, and we played to 11, or 21 if you played doubles and allowed ‘slams’ – meaning the ball could go PAST the curb and into the street, provided there wasn’t a parked car in front of that curb. My memories from the neighborhood also included: – Halfball (of course) – Handball – Running the Bases – ‘Atlantic City’ — which was a variation of Chink AND Running the Bases – very fun game – Jailbreak (surprised I haven’t seen this mentioned elsewhere – you had teams of people and you had to ‘free’ the person in ‘jail’ — which was someone’s front step – you would grab the railing, yell ‘jailbreak’ and all your teammates could leave jail. If you got caught by the other team, you were ‘dragged’ into jail. We usually had a member from each team ‘guarding’ the jail area!) – Wireball – Stepball – Fastball (a variation of stickball/halfball where you pitched a tennis ball into a ‘strike box’ painted on a wall and played with out and runs rules similar to halfball) – Wall/Suicide (simply throwing the ball against the wall, and having someone catch it – if you missed it you had to run to the wall and touch it and yell ‘Wall/Suicide’ before someone picked up your missed ball and BEANED it at your ass! – Dodge ball (played with the big red ball!) – Street football (we actually had an entire street block spray painted with yard line markers, logos, out of bounds markers, end zones, etc!) I’m sure there were plenty of others but this is all I can think of right now !!!
Deadbox! I have the dirties elbows in South Philly. Would anyone know where I can get a t-shirt with the game imprinted on it? I saw this once in a magazine and don’t remember where. Can you help me? Thanks, Chrissy