Spaldeen

A friend e-mailed me an article about the return of the Spaldeen, that red rubber ball we knew as kids. I forwarded the article to some other friends with a new subject line: "Boy, does this bring back memories." One of those friends responded with memories of his youth playing stickball in the streets of New York City. Stickball was a game where you used a sawed-off broom handle as a bat to hit the Spaldeen. You could buy a real stickball bat at the local toy store, but the cut-off broom handle was the equipment of choice because it didn't cost anything, except perhaps a few choice words from your father when he found out what happened to his broom. When you hit the ball, it flew off the bat and if it traveled a distance of at least two sewers, you were a superstar, akin to Derek Jeter of the Yankees or Manny Ramirez of the Red Sox.

The friend who wrote about his stickball experiences also mentioned another game that employed the Spaldeen - boxball. This reminded me of a street game we played almost every day in the summer. Some called it slapball, but as played in my neighborhood in Queens, New York, it was called triangle ball. The street in front of my house was tree lined, with traffic traveling in only one direction. There were cars parked on either side, so essentially it was a little more than three car widths wide. As kids, we needed to find a spot where no cars were parked on either side, so we could draw a home plate with chalk on the asphalt near one curb and a first and second base on the opposite curb to form a perfect triangle. The pitcher would stand in the middle of the street, right in the lane of traffic, and serve the rubber ball underhand so it would reach home plate on one bounce. The batter would then slap it with his open palm and run across the street to first base. The fielders would try to catch the ball and throw the runner out. We would keep score just like a regular baseball game - 3 outs to a side for 9 innings.

Thinking back on it now, this was probably the most fun I had as a child. I was one of two "big", i.e. older, kids on the block. The other was my best friend, Eddie. Since we were the "senior citizens," we were usually on opposing teams and got to pick our teammates from the remaining kids. As I recall, my teams were usually pretty good. And I was usually the star player.

Anyway, that's how I remember it.

At least until Eddie writes to challenge my recollection.