The Good Old Days

Growing up and cutting my teeth in the 1980’s was a lot different than it is today. Weekends back then consisted of sports, sports and more sports. We would just go outside, whether in the street or the local school or park and play the day away. Depending upon the season would mean basketball or hockey or baseball or football among other unique games (as you’ll see below) and the length of play would directly coincide with the hours of light.

These days I just do not see kids anywhere gathering and playing like in days past. I’m sure it happens in certain pockets of town but it just seems as if everybody now does their own thing and a lot of times it consists of sitting at home and playing video games. Now, with that said, we played our share of Odyssey, Atari, Intellivision and ColecoVision but that did not stop the outside fun.

What else did we do that seems to no longer take place? How about these amazing games that can still easily be played today, but just aren’t:

Stickball

Stickball was probably the most popular of them all. It was so simple but yet so awesome. All you needed was a bat and a ball, usually a broom stick with tape on it for grip and a tennis ball. You could play in the driveway or the local park or school. It involved a pitcher and a hitter and the strike zone would be a box taped or chalked onto a wall.

You could play one on one or two on two or whatever you wanted. Different places would mean different rules which you just go over before the game. There are no bases to run and it’s the same three strikes, four balls and three outs as in baseball. If you catch a fly ball it’s an out and If a hit ball is fielded cleanly before the pitcher than it’s also an out.

Hitting that tree was a do-over for some and maybe in play for others. Whatever you decide beforehand goes. If you have a fence a home run would probably be over it, while maybe a triple would be hitting it on a fly and a double would be one bounce to it. Again, different rules for different “parks”.

Running Bases

Why this game isn’t played more often I will never know. Kids absolutely love it and truth be told it burns a ton of calories, keeps them fit and tires them out in a major way leading to quality sleep.

You just take two bases or whatever can serve as two bases and place them at around 60 to 75 or so feet apart. Have two guys guarding the bases and throwing to each other while everybody else in the middle tries to steal as many bases as they can without getting tagged out. You can eliminate people if they get out or make it into any kind of a contest you want.

Just like stick ball above, there are different variations of how to play so just set those ground rules before-hand.

Roof Ball

Exactly as it sounds. Grab a ball, could be a tennis ball, could even be a football, could be whatever. You throw it up on the roof and the next guy needs to catch it. If it drops, he can be eliminated or just lose a point, depending upon the rules at hand. You can play with any amount of people. But please be careful!

Wall Ball

It doesn’t get much simpler than this. You need a ball and a wall. That’s it. It can be a tennis ball or a dodge ball or any type of round normal bouncing ball.

The first player throws it against the wall. The throw must always hit the wall without bouncing. Then the thrower or any other player tries to catch the ball on one bounce. If they grab it cleanly, they then throw the ball. If they drop it or throw it and it doesn’t hit the wall on a fly they then need to run to the wall before somebody else picks up the ball and hits the wall. There are different variations as to what happens now with some involving outs and some involving backside pain (if you know you know).

The lost art of outdoor weekends, wow, do I miss it!