Stickball on Eutaw Street

[Can_of_corn]

https://www.mlb.com/es/cut4/los-orioles-disfrutaron-de-una-competenica-de-stickball-con-sabor-latino

 

 

[bobmc]

I enjoyed that, but when we played stickball years ago during the last century, we had a large rectangular box (similar to the strike zone seen during games) on the wall of a schoolyard and threw a Spalding Hi-Bounce Ball at the box.  The batter would use a sawed off broomstick and either swing or let the ball hit the box for a strike or miss for a ball.  The best ones were when you mishit a ball so hard and with so much spin it was shaped like an egg and very hard to catch.  Catch a grounder or a fly for an out - miss for a baserunner.  Home runs were hit over buildings or fences or high onto a faraway wall.  We usually played one on one.  My friend Ted (who I played with during the late 1950's)  advanced to play for the Dodgers AAA team (with Ron Cey et al) but contracted malaria during the war and never got past AAA.

My idol during the fifties, Say Hey, famously played with local kids in NYC.

[DrungoHazewood]

We used to play one-on-one or one-on-one-with-all-time-pitcher, or other small sided versions of baseball in backyards and suburban streets in the 80s.  We'd occasionally get our hands on a pink rubber ball but it was unplayable.  We used regular wooden bats, and even at 10 years old we could hit that ball 200 feet.  In two-man baseball 200 feet might as well be 1000.  We'd always revert to some kind of plastic ball, or later a tennis ball.

[Redskins Rick]

29 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

We used to play one-on-one or one-on-one-with-all-time-pitcher, or other small sided versions of baseball in backyards and suburban streets in the 80s.  We'd occasionally get our hands on a pink rubber ball but it was unplayable.  We used regular wooden bats, and even at 10 years old we could hit that ball 200 feet.  In two-man baseball 200 feet might as well be 1000.  We'd always revert to some kind of plastic ball, or later a tennis ball.

We used whiffle balls, as we was in a sub division, while the yards were pretty decent, just not close to big enough for anything but a whiffle ball.

Here is the Ripken way of stick ball.  Note: I saw this same method used for my nephew in travel ball and high school ball.

 

 

[bobmc]

45 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

We used to play one-on-one or one-on-one-with-all-time-pitcher, or other small sided versions of baseball in backyards and suburban streets in the 80s.  We'd occasionally get our hands on a pink rubber ball but it was unplayable.  We used regular wooden bats, and even at 10 years old we could hit that ball 200 feet.  In two-man baseball 200 feet might as well be 1000.  We'd always revert to some kind of plastic ball, or later a tennis ball.

That's why the broomstick worked.  It was thinner and it was hard to "barrel" a ball without a barrel.  The "eggs" I described were more the norm with a lot of mishits.  When you finally squared one up, it did go though but they were rarer than 2019 MLB homers.  Whiffle ball was fun in the driveway and as the "foreskin man" above described, was better in smaller quarters.

[OFFNY]

58 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

 

We used whiffle balls, as we was in a sub division, while the yards were pretty decent, just not close to big enough for anything but a whiffle ball. ) 

Here is the Ripken way of stick ball. )  ) Note ........ I saw this same method used for my nephew in travel ball, and high school ball.

 

o

 

 

o

[Tony-OH]

We were pretty hard core whiffle ball guys, though we did use electrical tape at one point on the bats and the balls to give them more weight and make it more like baseball.

Even played whiffle ball up to my mid-30s against my brother in law and his friend in his large back yard.  Of course I also played actual men's baseball up until my early 40s when I decided to coach and scout more instead of play.

As kids though, I had plastic helmets of most of the teams so we would use them and play as those teams. We would flip to see who would be the Orioles and then the other had to pick another team. I typical choose the A's because I liked the helmet and they had that outfield of Rickey Henderson, Dwayne  Murphy, and Tony Armas. I would bat whatever way the player did and was a pretty good switch whiffle ball hitter, but never was able to convert that to real baseball unfortunately. 

We actually would keep stats of our players sometimes as well. I still remember hitting a "monster" left -handed home run as Wayne Gross that landed on the neighbors roof. It was one of the reason I was excited when I heard the Orioles had acquired Gross a couple years later.

 

[OFFNY]

o

 

I'm sure that most of you know this, but a whiffle ball becomes a knuckle ball if you insert a pebble inside of it.

We never used it in our games, but it was cool to feel like Wilbur Wood and Phil Niekro when tossing the ball to each other in practice.

 

o

[Redskins Rick]

58 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

We were pretty hard core whiffle ball guys, though we did use electrical tape at one point on the bats and the balls to give them more weight and make it more like baseball.

Even played whiffle ball up to my mid-30s against my brother in law and his friend in his large back yard.  Of course I also played actual men's baseball up until my early 40s when I decided to coach and scout more instead of play.

As kids though, I had plastic helmets of most of the teams so we would use them and play as those teams. We would flip to see who would be the Orioles and then the other had to pick another team. I typical choose the A's because I liked the helmet and they had that outfield of Rickey Henderson, Dwayne  Murphy, and Tony Armas. I would bat whatever way the player did and was a pretty good switch whiffle ball hitter, but never was able to convert that to real baseball unfortunately. 

We actually would keep stats of our players sometimes as well. I still remember hitting a "monster" left -handed home run as Wayne Gross that landed on the neighbors roof. It was one of the reason I was excited when I heard the Orioles had acquired Gross a couple years later.

 

We had a house rule where the ball was playable off the roof top, so crushed home runs were sometimes fly ball outs.

[Ohfan67]

29 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

We had a house rule where the ball was playable off the roof top, so crushed home runs were sometimes fly ball outs.

Same

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

We were pretty hard core whiffle ball guys, though we did use electrical tape at one point on the bats and the balls to give them more weight and make it more like baseball.

Even played whiffle ball up to my mid-30s against my brother in law and his friend in his large back yard.  Of course I also played actual men's baseball up until my early 40s when I decided to coach and scout more instead of play.

As kids though, I had plastic helmets of most of the teams so we would use them and play as those teams. We would flip to see who would be the Orioles and then the other had to pick another team. I typical choose the A's because I liked the helmet and they had that outfield of Rickey Henderson, Dwayne  Murphy, and Tony Armas. I would bat whatever way the player did and was a pretty good switch whiffle ball hitter, but never was able to convert that to real baseball unfortunately. 

We actually would keep stats of our players sometimes as well. I still remember hitting a "monster" left -handed home run as Wayne Gross that landed on the neighbors roof. It was one of the reason I was excited when I heard the Orioles had acquired Gross a couple years later.

 

I hit .951 with 192 homers in 1982 backyard baseball.  Seriously.  I kept stats on graph paper and stuck it on the fridge.

[Redskins Rick]

4 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I hit .951 with 192 homers in 1982 backyard baseball.  Seriously.  I kept stats on graph paper and stuck it on the fridge.

 

[Tony-OH]

44 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I hit .951 with 192 homers in 1982 backyard baseball.  Seriously.  I kept stats on graph paper and stuck it on the fridge.

Your friends must've hated you!

I was one of the older kids on my block so dominated as well. We used to play in our one friend's yard that had a fence that ran diagonally in the outfielder from left to deep right. That meant the younger kid on the other team that hit left-handed had a home run advantage and evened it out a bit. Of course I would switch hit so I could hit it out left-handed as well. They would usually throw the lefty though and forced my Ken Singleton to bat right handed so I would try and go the other way for homers!

I hit a number of home runs as Joe Nolan though because when I would announce the lineups, I would make sure it was full of lefties to take advantage of the short porch. Nolan, Dwyer, Lowenstein, Crowley and of course Eddie and Singleton were my guys at that field. 

[Frobby]

We used to play 2 on 2 or 3 on 3 with a wooden bat and a tennis ball on a black top.   Not easy to make an out, but every so often someone would get under a ball a little for a high fly out or a pop-up.    In right field there was a hill and a parking lot above.    Hitting a “parking lot homer” was a huge accomplishment — I finally hit one after 2-3 years and probably a couple hundred games of tennis ball.    

[DrungoHazewood]

2 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

Your friends must've hated you!

I was one of the older kids on my block so dominated as well. We used to play in our one friend's yard that had a fence that ran diagonally in the outfielder from left to deep right. That meant the younger kid on the other team that hit left-handed had a home run advantage and evened it out a bit. Of course I would switch hit so I could hit it out left-handed as well. They would usually throw the lefty though and forced my Ken Singleton to bat right handed so I would try and go the other way for homers!

I hit a number of home runs as Joe Nolan though because when I would announce the lineups, I would make sure it was full of lefties to take advantage of the short porch. Nolan, Dwyer, Lowenstein, Crowley and of course Eddie and Singleton were my guys at that field. 

I don't understand why they kept playing with me.  I was insufferable.  Earl was my hero, so I'd often stand on first base and argue until the other kid(s) acknowledged that, yes, I actually was safe.  I owe all of Elmbrook Drive an apology for my behavior.