Backyard ball. How did you play? | Page 2 | The Boneyard

Backyard ball. How did you play?

Jaydumo20 said:
While we wait for AK's decision. Instead of arguing with each other about what drink Tom Moore prefers at weddings, let's talk about why we love sports in the first place.

Outside of rec league/little league/travel league/pop warner organized sports, what did you play most as a kid, with your friends?

HORSE
Stick ball
Street Hockey?
It could be a number of different things, or maybe a way to play a sport that was totally unique.

We have a wide variety of fans on here and I always find it cool to see how some of y'all grew up.
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Built a basketball goal and hoop with scrap wood and an 8"X 8" X 20' wood beam that I rescued from a demo site. Played on this hoop along with all the boys in the neighborhood for maybe a dozen years in all kinds of weather before it became a hazard and we took it down or it fell down. With a very forgiving backboard and rim the bank shot became my preferred shot.
 
CL82 said:
Buddies of mine used to shoot each other with BB guns. The only rules were that 1) it could only be BBs no pellets 2) you could only pump the gun once and 3) no head shots.

eventually, they realized that something bad was going to happen and stopped. I heard about it after they stopped doing it.
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That's wild. I was never allowed to use BB guns when I was a kid, so I could see how badly that could have gone lol.
 
Huskybass said:
I grew up in Newtown on a cul de sac. We played baseball at the end of the street. Wiffle ball in the backyard, basketball in the driveway, and pond hockey on a small pond in the woods. We also had streams, ponds and lakes for fishing within walking or biking distance from home. We used to box in our neighbors basement, and ride sleds down a trail through the woods. We also played full court low hoop basketball in one of the town parks. I also played some tennis on a clay court which was different. Newtown was an awesome place to grow up.
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Your story brings back good memories of when I grew up next to you in Monroe. We did everything you did and then some.

Our house was “the house” where kids from around the neighborhood would come to play. Basketball, football and baseball were the primary games that seemed to happen from sun up to sun down. During summertime we would make up our own Summer Olympic Games and then we had the Winter Olympics during the winter months. Some of the events would consist of timed laps around the house, shot-putting with a croquet ball, bench and chair hurdling, fastest sled time down a hill, shooting a puck and many others.
Family room football was always a battle. Basically, the ball carrier had a 2yd. run to the couch and the defender had to stop him before he made it there. Either putting him to the floor or holding him up in place. Nerf basketball was also a constant where we picked a pro teams players and kept stats.
Between the broken windows, broken siding shingles, lamps, knick knacks our parents were awesome letting a us be kids and understanding when things would break.
Good times.
 
Wiffle ball, from when the park dried out in the spring until fall basically. We had a league across the whole neighborhood with our own set of rules
 
Whiffleball and had a hoop in my driveway when I was in elementary/middle school. When my brother was around we’d play 1on1 even though he was a bit older, HORSE and Around the World.

When I got older and was able to drive, I had a group of friends who also played hoops at varying levels in college and we would would drive around and play pick up games wherever possible - Waterbury, Beacon Falls, Ansonia, Naugatuck, Monroe, Shelton, New Haven, West Haven, among others. Funny, the toughest players were always the ‘old guys’…who were probably like late 20’s-early 30’s.
 
Jaydumo20 said:
Yeah. The safety factor is crazy to imagine. I remember if it was snowing we'd play tackle on the street.
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I had the back of my heel scraped off from a guy covering me who was wearing steel toed construction boots. We didn't tackle playing in the street, but a favorite pass play was an out thrown just OOB where the receiver would hook his feet on the curb. We eventually moved to a grass field every Sunday, then just a Turkey Bowl till I was 45.

Had a backyard hoop. Played mostly one-on-one and horse. Also played street hockey and street baseball (with a couple broken windows) as well as wiffle ball. At one point we made up a golf course of things around our block, and used crushed soda cans as golf balls.
 
Our neighborhood played every sport depending on the season. Baseball and swimming in the summer. Tackle football (sometimes touch) in the Fall. Driveway basketball was Fall/Winter/Spring. Pond/backyard ice hockey when the weather permitted. Sometimes huge co-ed capture the flag games in the evenings. Everyone had a bike and we rode everywhere.
 
I forgot about Around the World. We played that, too.

Also had a wiffle ball field at my house. My dad cleared our side lot and built a garden, a blueberry bush pen and then build a wiffle ball field, complete with foul poles. We played pond hockey, swam and did a lot of things.

The dumbest things we did was climb about 30-40 feet up in a tree and jump to the next one. (We only did this a couple of times. Had one friend jump and the branch he grabbed broke. He fell about 15 feet before landing on another branch and snagging a different branch at the same time. He had a few bruises. I think back to the row of tree where we did this and how it had a stone wall below it and how that stone wall may have been there since colonial times.
 
Spaceman213J said:
I forgot about Around the World. We played that, too.

Also had a wiffle ball field at my house. My dad cleared our side lot and built a garden, a blueberry bush pen and then build a wiffle ball field, complete with foul poles. We played pond hockey, swam and did a lot of things.

The dumbest things we did was climb about 30-40 feet up in a tree and jump to the next one. (We only did this a couple of times. Had one friend jump and the branch he grabbed broke. He fell about 15 feet before landing on another branch and snagging a different branch at the same time. He had a few bruises. I think back to the row of tree where we did this and how it had a stone wall below it and how that stone wall may have been there since colonial times.
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Looking back, it is crazy to think of some the stuff that we did and survived. I rode my single speed bike down a steep hill behind Bowl-o-Rama and didn't handle the turn. I hit the curb and flew off the bike landing on someone's lawn. The homeowner ran out of the house thinking that I was injured or dead. But I was fine and got back on the bike and peddled home. I was probably 14 at the time. Good to be young.
 
bjc42 said:
That's wild. I was never allowed to use BB guns when I was a kid, so I could see how badly that could have gone lol.
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My brother shot me with a bow and f$#%ing arrow as a kid right in the thigh. He also gave me a concussion jousting on bikes with mops in the yard. And I still babysit this clowns two kids every Friday.

He posts on here but won't out his screen name to me. NOW IS YOUR CHANCE.
 
Mister P said:
Your story brings back good memories of when I grew up next to you in Monroe. We did everything you did and then some.

Our house was “the house” where kids from around the neighborhood would come to play. Basketball, football and baseball were the primary games that seemed to happen from sun up to sun down. During summertime we would make up our own Summer Olympic Games and then we had the Winter Olympics during the winter months. Some of the events would consist of timed laps around the house, shot-putting with a croquet ball, bench and chair hurdling, fastest sled time down a hill, shooting a puck and many others.
Family room football was always a battle. Basically, the ball carrier had a 2yd. run to the couch and the defender had to stop him before he made it there. Either putting him to the floor or holding him up in place. Nerf basketball was also a constant where we picked a pro teams players and kept stats.
Between the broken windows, broken siding shingles, lamps, knick knacks our parents were awesome letting a us be kids and understanding when things would break.
Good times.
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I played family room football all the time too. Same rules as yours. But we called it "goal line"
 
We were on the honor system, much better officiating than when James Breeding is working
 
Played a lot of half-court basketball
we play a lot of three on three basketball games
the fall we played tackle football. We were serious as I broke my finger and collarbone playing sandlot football in Middletown our projects.
 
Huskybass said:
I grew up in Newtown on a cul de sac. We played baseball at the end of the street. Wiffle ball in the backyard, basketball in the driveway, and pond hockey on a small pond in the woods. We also had streams, ponds and lakes for fishing within walking or biking distance from home. We used to box in our neighbors basement, and ride sleds down a trail through the woods. We also played full court low hoop basketball in one of the town parks. I also played some tennis on a clay court which was different. Newtown was an awesome place to grow up.
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Didn’t that one elementary school rock the 8’ outdoor rims??
 
In elementary school, a lot of football in the backyard. One of my friends, when it was just the two of us, would stand on either side of the yard, one would punt the ball to the other, then we’d sprint at each other and see who could make/break the tackle.

Soccer was my main sport though, and once I got to high school I would play pickup every day that I didn’t have practice. My friends on my high school team and I all played on various club teams, but we loved playing together. There was a pick up game every day, either in a grass field, on a tennis court, or on an outdoor basketball court. Whoever didn’t have practice with their club team that day would show up. Those days were some of the happiest times for me.
 
husky429 said:
My brother shot me with a bow and f$#%ing arrow as a kid right in the thigh. He also gave me a concussion jousting on bikes with mops in the yard. And I still babysit this clowns two kids every Friday.

He posts on here but won't out his screen name to me. NOW IS YOUR CHANCE.
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That is absolutely wild. What kind of bow/arrow was it? probably some serious bleeding from that, that is crazy.
 
HCCForever said:
I was only three blocks from Hyland Park in Hartford. We played everything depending on the season.
We used to play double or nothing if we didn't have enough for baseball. We sometimes played with as little as two on a side and you had to choose your field, second base and over.
Played a lot of basketball, sandlot football, street hockey in the schoolyard.
When it was cold enough, we would go to the cemetery a half mile away and play ice hockey.
Built a bobsled run one year for our sledding and used those plastic boats to go down the run.
Also golfed a bunch at Goodwin Park with our golf cards for a quarter. Also swam at Goodwin.

We were always busy. Never spent time indoors if we could help it. Much different than today.
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I grew up right behind St Augustine’s School. Played LL at Hyland. Swim lessons and the 0.25 golf card at Goodie. Graduated from HS in 85. What year were you?
 
We played a ton of wiffle ball. Had our own “custom” bats. Kept homerun totals. There was a tree in the middle of right field that was the “triple” tree. To this day I would bet I could strike 90% of you out.

Also, not proud of it, but we’d play “Smear the queer”. Fenced in spot, one football, 6-10 guys. Whoever had the football got basically murdered until someone else got the ball.
 
Wow love this thread. So many memories flooding back..We did most of these things from wiffle tourneys to football cream the carrier to hoops round the world and street hockey

but one of my favs was what we called stickball( not sure if it was our invention or if others did the something similar) our version was played in the rain, 2 on 2 with a tennis ball and a 28” wood bat we cut the barrel to leave a flat side. what made this fun was NO GHOST RUNNERS. So if you made it on base your teammate had to hit you home. Lots of running, slipping and sliding placing your hits strategically away from the only fielder. Anyone do this?
 
bjc42 said:
That is absolutely wild. What kind of bow/arrow was it? probably some serious bleeding from that, that is crazy.
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It wasn't a hunting arrow--it was a target arrow. Just one made for kids, but it definitely stuck in the meat of my thigh. Less-than-pleasant experience.
 
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