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What street games did you play?

When I was in high school, my brother and I and our neighbours played a game of stickball that went like this.

1. Batter stands on our front steps, pitcher stands at the foot of our path on the sidewalk and the fielder’s stand across the street in front of Mr. Diltz’s place.


2. Pitcher pitches, batter bats. Batter runs down the path, across the sidewalk, off the curb, across the street and gets to the sewer grate on the other side to be safe.


3. If the batter reaches home (“a double”), one run is scored.


4. If the batter eaches the base only, he comes back and hits again, driving the ghost runner home.


5. Home run scores if the ball lands on Mr. Diltz’s lawn


6. Out is the ball hits Diltz’s house. And you have to apologize.


7. Batter’s rotate and the one with the highest score by supper time wins.

In true Canadian fashion, we played with a sawed-off hockey stick and a dead tennis ball. We played in the languid days of summer from the time that the leaves came out on the maples to the deep red fall, when the base was hidden in a logjam of autumnal detritus. We played in the afternoons, after school or in the weekend evenings after we had watched the Blue Jays game and eaten supper. We played for nothing but the pure joy of stroking that dead ball high into the towering maple trees and running like the wind while the fielders timed their catches as the ball ricocheted to the ground.