The way things used to be – Stoop Ball – Rules of the game

Lucky Strike Green was home after the war, as was Dubble gum. You could also buy Pink Spaldeens again, but now for a dime instead of pre-war nickel. There weren’t many new cars on the streets yet, so there was still plenty of room for punch ball, stickball, association football, and all of our other games.

We thought that the end of the war meant that all wars were forever over. We did not know that our envoys had agreed to divide Korea along the 38th parallel, that the Soviets had put Kim Il-Sung in charge north of the parallel, or that they intended to reunify the peninsula under communist control. Even if we had known, we would not have imagined that any of that could have any effect on any of us.

In the fall and winter we play roller hockey and association football. Starting in March we switched to punchball and stickball. Marble season started on the Saturday after Halloween, but the hunched ball went all year. The only thing that stopped the crouching ball was too much snow on the ground.

We follow the usual rules: an infielder, an outfielder; nine input games; If the ball hit the sidewalk from which you hit, was caught before it bounced or left the free throw lines, you were out. One rebound was a single, two a double, etc. If you hit the wall of the building across the street on the fly and the ball doesn’t get caught before it hits the ground, it’s a home run. The imaginary base runners advanced one base on a single, two on a double.

The only difference was that instead of a step, we hit the S-shaped ledges that ran three feet above the curb on the wall on the 88th Street side of 575 West End Avenue. They were perfect for hitting: seven-inch-tall white S-curves that stretched from the face of the wall between the downstairs windows. If it hit the sweet spot on the convex part of the ledge, the ball was thrown off a clothesline too high to catch before hitting 585 on the other side of the 88. Hit above the sweet spot and you jumped or the ball hit overhead off the third floor of 585 and was easy to catch when it bounced. Hit the concave part of the S and the ball went to the infield.

Just as 575 was perfect for hitting, 585 was perfect for outfield. He had crenulations up to the third floor that made the ball bounce in fluid ways that outfielders couldn’t predict. Matt, tall, big hands, good jumper, stood with his back to 585 ready to jump, or turn, back up and catch the bounce. He was our best outfielder, but he had a weak arm and couldn’t hit.

The two hardest guys to get out were Blue Book and Esau. Blue Book hit with an underwater move, and could usually land in singles unless Nate, who had been a soccer goalkeeper in Switzerland and had the fastest hands on the block, was playing in the infield.

Esau was our toughest pitcher. He struck directly from so close to the wall that he sometimes skinned his knuckles. The Spaldeens were in high spirits. Bounce one off the sidewalk and it would go up to the third floor. When Esau hit the spot at the bottom of the ledge, the spaldeen shot up to three feet and bounced two inches past the edge of the sidewalk. Nate had to replay in the middle of the fairway just to keep it to a single.

When Blue Book and Esau were on the same team, they loaded the bases with singles the first few times they got up, then went for home runs or kept hitting runners until fifteen runs went ahead and won on the kill rule. If Esau had been taller and a better outfielder, he might have been Number One in Blue Book’s Stoop Ball Hall of Fame. As it was, he only did it with his hitting.