Off-point, maybe, query re "stickball"

[Jerome Foster]

Brooklyn stickball was a little different.We too used a broomstick but I
don't think most of us had ever seen a tennis ball. If we were in the chips
we used a "spaldeen" and if not some similar rubber ball. We had no real
left field or right field because we played in the street, or as we called
it "the gutter" and the fielders lined up more or less in a row. I don't
remember the rules except that if you caught the ball on a fly you got to
bat. Sometimes if we were short of players we self-pitched or self-batted (I
don't remember the terminology). I do remember though that we measured  hits
by "sewers." I've been out of NYC for about 30 yrs so I have no idea if
stickball is still played.

Jerome Foster

----- Original Message -----
From: "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at earthlink.net>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Monday, August 02, 2004 3:41 PM
Subject: Off-point, maybe, query re "stickball"


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at EARTHLINK.NET>
> Subject:      Off-point, maybe, query re "stickball"
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
>
> In Saint Louis, there is what amounts to a local pastime called
> "corkball." in my day, *all* guys played it, regardless of race, creed,
> etc.
>
> To play it, you needed a minimum of four guys: pitcher, catcher,
> outfielder, and batter, with the max being six guys, so that there were
> three fielders. The only equipment required was a broomstick and a
> *used* tennis ball, Geoff. But the game was so popular that
> professionally-made corkballs, which were cork spheres looking like a
> golf balls with  baseball covers sewn onto them, and corkball bats,
> which looked like slightly-longer, nearly broomstick-thin baseball
> bats, could be had at any sporting-goods store or department store. It
> was not a team game; it was every man for himself. The batter was not
> obliged to swing at any pitch and there was no base-running, so no
> umpires were needed. But, if the batter did swing and he missed and the
> catcher caught the ball before it touched the ground, the batter was
> out and had to go to left field, the left fielder to center, the center
> fielder to right, and the right fielder became the pitcher and the
> catcher became the new batter, the pitcher the new catcher, and the
> previous right fielder became the new pitcher. If the batter hit the
> ball and the pitcher caught it on the fly, the pitcher became the new
> batter, the batter became the new left fielder, the old left fielder
> became the center fielder, the center fielder became the right fielder
> and the old right fielder became the pitcher. If a fielder caught the
> ball on the fly, he became the new batter and the old batter became the
> left fielder, etc. Whichever of the pitcher or the fielders first
> fielded three ground balls became the new batter, etc., etc. Tips and
> foul balls, if caught on the fly, were automatic outs and whoever
> caught the ball became the new batter, with the usual shifts in
> position among the other players. If tips and foul balls weren't caught
> on the fly, they didn't count as anything. If the batter swung and both
> he and the catcher missed the ball, it was a strike. Three strikes and
> the batter was out, with the usual shifting around of the other
> players.
>
> Is stickball anything like this?
>
> -Wilson Gray
>