Asphalt Playground: Stickball Bounces Back
Next weekend you have the opportunity to catch a game of good old fashioned East Harlem Stickball. Next
weekend the police will close three side streets for what is being dubbed the “Word Series of Stickball.” But stickball isn’t what it used to be. Nowadays teams have to apply for permits to play in the streets and a specialty company supplies the bats, uh, sticks. Yet the rules of the game remain the same according to Hall of Famer, Carlos Diaz:
Mr. Diaz insists that the city game remains unbesmirched. “Hit a ball under a parked car, and it’s all the bases you can get until someone goes underneath to get the ball. Hit a fly that bounces up along the fire escape, and you’re out if it’s caught on the fly when it comes down.”
What about the long ball, say, in Brooklyn 55 years ago when a kid could pop one along 81st Street and hit the synagogue across Fourth Avenue for a home run? “Well, the long ball is O.K.,” Mr. Diaz interjects. “But my mentor, Charlie Ballard — he played stickball into his 80s — taught me about down-and-hard hitting. Nasty, bouncing shots that no one can field.” That still seems no match for the buzz of going deep for the synagogue.
-Source: New York Times
For more information about the World Series of Stickball over July 4th Weekend visit: World Series Stickball [Official Site]
Photo credits: Streetplay.com – Top: Young Devils in Spanish Harlem ’40s; Bottom: Carlos Diaz, Hall of Famer
Stumble It!
