great stuff: football and international politics

[Alice Faber]

On 3/17/12 12:32 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> On Mar 16, 2012, at 10:27 PM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:
>
>>
>>>>
>>>> We played kickball at Chevy Chase elementary in Toonerville
>>>> (Atwater district, Los Angeles) in the late 1940s -- rules similar
>>>> to softball, as modified by circumstances,
>>>
>>> In all the versions of kickball I remember playing (early-mid 1950s,
>>> NYC), you can retire a runner by hitting them with the ball (between
>>> bases).  Such throws are frowned upon in softball.
>>
>>
>>
>> When you played pickup games of kickball, soft/baseball, and other games with base runner, and you didn't have enough people, did you use "ghost runners"?
>>
> We certainly did, sometimes even allowing two or three ghost runners (bases loaded with ghosts).  I'd forgotten that.
>

Likewise. And, if you'd asked me what happened in kickball if you didn't
have enough players, I would have hemmed and hawed. But the simple
phrase "ghost runner" brings it all back.


--
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Alice Faber                                       faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                            tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
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