Ever invent a sport or game?

[Eats_Crayons]

Oo! I thought of another… Pummel Cat a.k.a. Bludgeon Kitty – not as bad as it sounds, really!

My previous pet, the Late Great “Snowball”, grew up with me. We got him when I was four. He and I really roughhoused, like you wouldn’t believe – like siblings.

Even though our play fighting was really rough, Snowball was a gentleman and would NOT play-fight or play-bite any non-family members.

Though he refused to play-fight with non-family members, he had no qualms with chomping the cardboard tube of an empty roll of paper towels that was brandished by a non-family member.

Thus, the sport known as Pummel Cat was born!

Snowball felt like he could play with my friends by wrestling and chomping the cardboard tube. The cardboard tube became the “Pummel Stick”. Snowball was the “Bludgeon Kitty”, and there was a little “Rubber Ball” cat toy…

The object of the game was to launch the Ball down a hallway (all doors closed) so it would bounce everywhere, the Bludgeon Kitty captured the ball and tried to get it past the human children wielding Pummel Sticks. We’d bonk the kitty (gently) and he’d defend his possession of the little ball, and race to the living room. It was chaos!

Note: Snowball was a VERY BIG cat. He weighed almost 20 lbs. Having that much cat meat crash into your chest when you’re only five or six… You could get the wind knocked out of you.

My parents were a bit skeptical at first, an thought “what the hell are they all doing???” But it was obvious to the grown-ups that Snowball thought it was Great Sport, and whenever he won he always came back with the ball and got into position to race down the hall again for a new round. (He’d get into that “runner in the starting blocks position” and wiggle his butt, ready to charge after the ball again).

Usually Snowball won the game, but sometimes he would drop the ball to tackle a cardboard tube instead. Then the human children would fight for possession of the ball. The winner was whoever who made it to the rec-room in possession of the ball (either cat or human).

If a human child lost their Pummel Stick to the cat, they automatically lost the round (Snowball would sometimes drop the ball, preferring to roll around wrestling a cardboard tube instead.)

IIRC, Snowball wouldn’t play if there were more than three children (I guess he didn’t like the odds).

My parents thought it was insane, but the cat was clearly a willing participant. And it coud keep us busy for most of an afternoon.

[Ludovic]

Once or twice, my brother and I played tennis with a golf ball. Long enough to know that it would really not feel good if the ball hit me in the, say, shins.

A slightly more health-amenable version was, and it even had a name, “4 court tennis”. You need a tennis location with two pairs of tennis courts separated by a wire fence.

Rules varied, but basically you played tennis across the wire fence (which was at least 10 feet high.) The most, umm, fun part of it was needing to get from one half of your side to another, which sometimes would involve jumping over the net.

We modified the rules to prevent an impossible combo such as a lowball shot into the “front court” followed by a shot that would bounce out of the court by saying that variously the shot had to hit in the front, or in the back court after one bounce. And we had enough common sense to say you couldnt jump over the nets.

It’s a fun game!!!

Another game, which we have never tried, was “invented” by my gaming group. We want to recreate gladiator-style boffo contests that you would see in carnivals, but over a pool. Take a 2*4 and place it over a pool, both persons try to knock the other into the pool. The hardest part, besides of course finding a pool whose owner won’t mind the possible wood scratches, would be making the weapons (out of wood and pool koozies, natch).

[Duke]

Growing up in rural PA, my cousin, a friend of ours, and I invented Road Football. There was a straight quarter-mile stretch of road near where the cousin lived that had a stop sign at both ends. Cars travelled down this road just often enough to make the game interesting.

The rules: One person is the Quarterback, and is the “neutral” player. The other two are the Wide Receiver and Defensive Back, picked at random to start–these two are the ones actually in competition. Play starts at one end of the road, with the “line of scrimmage” at one stop sign. The QB and WR face the other stop sign, with the DB on the other side of the line of scrimmage. When the QB calls “hike,” the WR runs a pattern on the road, and the DB defends him. It’s up to the QB to throw the ball to the receiver, but he has to throw it within ten seconds.

If the WR catches the ball, he scores a point, and can run towards the stop sign until he is tagged by the DB or he downs the ball. If the DB intercepts the ball, he gets the point, and he is now the receiver, with the WR switching over to the defensive role. The new line of scrimmage is where the WR was tagged, or where the DB intercepted the ball.

If the pass is incomplete, the ball is returned to the line of scrimmage, but the WR and DB change roles.

If a car is spotted anywhere on the road, or if a car approaches the intersections at either stop sign, any player can shout “Car!” If there’s actually a car in sight, the play is nullified and there is no scoring. There is no penalty for shouting “Car!” when there’s no car in sight.

There are no penalties for pass interference, offensive or defensive, before the ball is thrown, but after the ball is thrown, either player can be called. The Quarterback is the sole judge. If defensive pass interference is called, the WR gets a point; offensive pass interference, the play is treated as an incomplete pass and the WR and DB switch roles.

The game continues until a player makes a catch as WR and runs into the “end zone” (past the stop sign on the opposite end from the start), or the DB intercepts the ball in the end zone.

There’s actually a lot more strategy than you’d think in this game. Obviously there’s the old ruse of shouting “CAAAARRR!” when the WR is open and there’s no chance of breaking up the pass. But the real strategy comes in “road management.” The WR has no obligation to run towards the end zone, so, when behind in the score, it’s in his interest to try to run short routes and down the ball as soon as possible. There was one game when I was behind by five points, and we were only 30 yards from the stop sign. I ran six straight three-yard-and-out patterns and eventually won. On the other hand, once on the first play of a game I fell while defending my cousin, who caught the pass in stride and ran the whole quarter-mile to bank a 1-0 win.

Road Football was a great game that combined football, playing in traffic, and blatant lying. A perfect game for bored teenagers.