Street Ball

We played street ball long before the term street ball was linked to the rowdy, no-holds barred brand of basketball that has made its way from the playground to the NBA. For us, street ball was merely a group of kids playing a game of rundown; or maybe a game of 500, out on the street in our Manchester neighborhood.

The area residents all knew that the streets would be filled with kids and they watched out for us. The cry of, "Car!" was the sign for us to rapidly grab whatever we had in the street and run to the side; waiting for the car to pass. We all raced back into the middle of the street to resume our game as soon as the car passed from our field of play.

It didn't matter whether the day was hot and humid or cool and cloudy; we were playing in the street. We didn't have video games or cable television, so we just made our own fun; a group of kids out having a good time.

I think 500 was my favorite game. The rules were simple; one person was the batter and everyone else positioned themselves down the street wherever they thought they had the best chance of getting the ball. The batter's job was to throw a baseball into the air and hit it on its way down. The hit had to stay within the boundaries of the street. The batter tried to hit the ball past the fielders in order to extend their time at bat. The fielders each tried to be the first person to reach 500 points; with 100 points awarded for catching a fly ball, 50 for catching a grounder after only one bounce, 25 points for catching a grounder after two bounces and 10 points for catching a grounder after three bounces. The ball was dead if it hit the ground four times.

The game could be brutal at times; with fielders jostling for position to catch a fly or try to get in front of the other fielders trying to get to a ground ball. The reward for reaching 500 points was the chance to be the batter.

Rundown, or pickle, became the game of choice when only three or four people were available to play. Two players were basemen with the other one or two players serving as runners. Two bases were set up about sixty or seventy feet apart in the middle of the street. The basemen would throw the ball back and forth in a game of catch. The runner(s) tried to time the throws in such as way that they could take off from one base and safely reach the other base without being tagged out by the basemen. The real fun started when they runner got caught in a rundown.

Just like in the pros; the basemen would start chasing the runner toward the opposite bag, throwing the ball at the last possible moment to avoid them having a chance to spin around and get behind the baseman with the ball. Being tagged out meant you had to become one of the basemen and whomever had tagged the runner out got to become the new runner.

The games didn't require any special equipment; just a baseball, a bat and a glove - equipment every kid had. But, oh, did we have fun! The streets were filled with the sounds of a wooden bat hitting the baseball, or of the baseball slapping against the leather mitt. Most of all, though, the streets were filled with the sounds of kids laughing and being kids.

The games typically ended only when too many players had been called home for dinner or it simply became too dark to see the ball any more. I suppose the games never really ended, though; they were merely recessed until dinner was over or a new day was upon us.

I wonder where all the kids have gone as I spend time outside now.  I suppose it isn't safe for kids to play in the street any more. Most cars in our neighborhood ignore the 25 mph speed limit and often consider stop signs to be mere suggestions; making it far too dangerous to allow the kids to play ball out there.

The park about one-half block from home is virtually always empty, too; save for an occasional person walking a dog or a rec league game on the baseball diamond. The only sounds in the neighborhood are the putter of a lawn mower or the bark of a dog.

The kids have moved inside; street ball - as we knew it - seemingly gone forever.