Yeah, our games were most typically 3-on-3 to 4-on-4, so it was pitcher’s hand out, and right field out (although we made it left field out for left handed hitters. I suppose you could designate your field if you wanted to, but everyone went for the “pull” side of the field.) There were no homeruns in the opposite field, no matter how far you hit it. Fields didn’t really usually have an outfield fence where we played here, but we occasionally would incorporate fences in one way or another into our game.
Getting a full 9-on-9 game was a treat and required extensive coordination.
You know, I can’t remember what we did in the runners situation. We had 2-on-2 situations, so obviously we had a solution for that. I don’t remember if the non-batter had to be the lead runner or the trailing runner or what. But there had to have been some sort of “ghost runner” rule.
Your question prompts me to say something I’ve been meaning to. It’s been discussed here before, but I can’t remember just where, that “the 70’s” are for the first part what’s been called “the 60’s” and which only included the period from 1967 (at the earliest) on into at least the mid 70’s. The latter portion was a rejection of the reckless abandon of the Hippie Years (which were an outgrowth of the Beatnik Years that had begun in the 50’s).
So “great and varied” might be interpreted as varying degrees of rebellion against “the system” and “the establishment” on into the birth of the “Me Generation.” Simplified for sure but maybe helpful.
Where (if at all) an individual adapted to the social pressure of the period depended to a large part on his/her age at the time. Attitudes toward the period by people born later have to be based to some degree on movies, TV, music and other pop culture residue. It’s like trying to relate to The Old West in any personal way.
Oh, yeah, this is taking me back. Once again, not to the 70s, but 80s, in my case. We had no “pass rush at any time” for most pick-up football games. But we did have some kind of pass rush and blitz rule, so it wasn’t forbidden. I’m hazy on it, but I remember it being something like 7 second count that you had to do aloud (ONE-one-thousand, TWO-one-thousand, THREE-one-thousand, etc.) before you can pass rush, and you could blitz once every cycle of downs, but you had to yell out “BLITZ!!!” before doing so, which of course led to fake-outs like the defense pretending to rush and shouting out “SCHLITZ!” without crossing the line of scrimmage.
Malls were kind of half and half in my neck of the woods (northern NJ) there was a big mall far away that we would go to on special trips (willowbrook, still there) but do most of our shopping at department stores in Dover and Morristown. Then Rockaway opened in 1977 and that pretty much killed downtown Dover.
I’m mostly only nostalgic for the porn and the penumbra (for lack of a better word) of porn: the absence of pubic hair shaving obsession, sexy panties instead of Wedgies-R-Us high-leghole versions and thongs, and… well, tight low-cut jeans, too, but those, fortunately, make a comeback
Not just bell bottoms, we also let the hem out of the leg bottom. Plus, we even wore jeans made out of small denim patches for awhile. You couldn’t get faded jeans new back then so bleach was our friend.
I was in high school in the Seventies, and there was certainly much I loved at the time… but there’s not too much I’d like to re-live.
What I miss most about New York in the Seventies is how cheap things were, and how easy it was for an ordinary, middle-class kid from Queens to enjoy the cultural opportunities New York had to offer. For instance, when I was in high school, I was a major theater geek, and regularly went to Duffy Square on Wednesday afternoons to get 1/2 price tickets to Broadway shows. Back then, 1/2 price meant $6.00 or so! Or, to put it another way, just over two hours pay at a minimum wage job (minimum wage was $2.65 and hour in those days). Not much more than a movie.
A kid in my old neighborhood now would have to pay a helluva lot more than that even for 1/2 price tickets. There’s still plenty to love in New York, but increasingly, you have to be rich to enjoy them.
Shoot, the antiquated two-story house I grew up in would easily fetch a million bucks now, whereas my stepfather bought it for just $75,000 in 1979. The kinds of families I grew up with just can’t afford to live in Astoria today.
Tom Wolfe once observed that, while the Seventies are often PERCEIVED as a conservative, reactionary decade folliwng the radical Sixties, the Seventies are more accurately described as the era when everything that SEEMED radical in the Sixties became completely mainstream.
In 1969, a gay parade seemed shocking- by 1979, such parades were common, and the mayor usually marched in them.
In 1969, wearing long hair could still get you beaten up by rednecks; by 1979, all the rednecks wore long hair.
In 1969, co-ed dorms seemed shocking; by 1979, every college had them and nobody thought twice about them.
In 1969, pot smoking was confined largely to hippies and bohemians; by 1979, it was EVERYWHERE.
First of all, I was born in 1959, so I came of age in the late '70’s.
I don’t miss much of the music. With songs like “Seasons in the Sun,” “Muskrat Love,” and the omnipresent disco, the 1970’s offered some of the worst American popular music.
When I see fashions from that era, I always think: “What we were thinking back then? Oh, yeah, we were all stoned.”
OTOH, the 1970’s is to me the greatest decade of situation comedy. All in the Family, MASH, The MTM Show, Sanford and Son, WKRP in Cincinnati, Good Times *before J.J. took it over. All great shows.
The movies were pretty good, too.
I definitely miss the cheap marijuana.
Yeah, some music sucked during the 70’s. But, man:
The Allman Brothers
Lynyrd Skynyrd
James Taylor
The Who (Who’s Next)
Stevie Wonder
The Eagles
Black Sabbath
David Bowie
Chicago
Aerosmith
Steeley Dan
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Three Dog Night
Rod Stewart
Bob Seger
Supertramp
Genesis
AC/DC
Van Halen
Jethro Tull
Basically every major musical artist that I like, and many I don’t, made major contributions throughout the 70’s. To me, that far outweighs the scars left by “Muskrat Love”. . . but, I understand your pain.
I was born in 1973 and remember some things about the decade. Few of them are positive and I didn’t even have anything to compare it to at the time. The whole decade was just off in many ways and most of those were not good even when you look at it backwards through rose colored glasses.
Now I’m nostalgic. Not for the 70s, but for my lost youth.
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Is there any other kind of nostalgia, really?
I owned a couple of '70s cars in the '80s and one thing I miss about them was that they were a lot easier for you or buddies who knew a thing or two about automotives to work on when it was something minor, and you could find parts in your back yard practically.
70s to me = adolescence so I was thrilled to leave it behind. As to the decade in hindsight, like others said there was very good music if you skipped disco, and some outstanding film and TV work was done. I had no beef with the Avocado Green or Harvest Gold appliances: at least you did not have to worry about smudging the Stainless with fingerprints.
My particular definition has the Cultural 60s lasting into FY73 (US Fiscal Year ending 30 Sept. 1973). That brought the end of the draft and actual direct involvement in VN, return of POWS, end of the moon shots; by the Fall there’s the Yom Kippur war and on its heels the first OPEC embargo which is definitely a Cultural 70s component. So the 70s start some time in late Summer or early Fall of 1973.
I have a harder time figuring out the cusp from Cultural 70s to Cultural 80s, it certainly happens during the first Reagan term, I’d call it at some point during 1982 if I had to
1970’s pop music could be pretty dire. But that decade also saw the birth of Punk/New Wave, not to mention the apogee of “classic rock” and old school Funk/Soul. Tons of good music from the '70’s. Really an amazingly fertile decade in that sense.
I was born in 1968, but the '70’s were a mixed bag for me. My parents were highly peripatetic in those years, changing cities/states ~ every two years plus they split by the time I entered 4th grade, so I had a fair bit stress back then. Still, some great memories mixed in with the fucked up ones.
