I think the question is self-explanatory but I probably shouldn’t assume that. ‘Catch’ is an activity played by all ages that involves repeatedly throwing a ball of some sort back and forth between two or more people. No score is kept. A baseball is one of the more common types of balls used for this but it could be anything from a football to a tennis ball.
My question is do people in parts of the world where soccer (football) is the premier sport also routinely play catch? Soccer doesn’t involve catching balls much or even using your hands at all.
In Spain it’s mostly seen as a game for small children, there are many variants of which some are more “grown” than others; the one we call churri-va in my hometown would have been likely to get a little kid hurt, at the speeds at which that handball flies. I’ve seen catch used as part of soccer tryouts /training, to help the coach figure out possible goalies and as general coordination exercises/wind-down respectively.
In the UK catch is pretty much a game for young children too, though it wouldn’t be inconceivable to see teenagers/adults in a park on a summers day playing catch.
You might see teenagers or young adults playing catch with a cricket ball for practice as throwing and catching a cricket balls are obviously a very important skill. Cricket balls would be too dangerous for very young children as it is exceptionally easy to break your fingers trying to catch one and they can even be deadly when thrown, if hit in the head. Cricket though is nowhere near as popular as soccer.
You wouldn’t see people playing catch with a rugby ball as most of the skills needed to throw and catch in rugby is something that can only really be practiced in drills or by playing practice games.
Generally speaking though if you went to the park you’d be more likely to see some soccer-related sporting recreation such as a pick-up game, ‘knock out’, ‘world cup’ or just kicking the ball around. That reminds me that people used to see one of the 1st team players of my local soccer team (which is a Premiership team, intermittently) kicking a ball up against a wall by himself at the park around the corner from my house.
I have seen kids who play soccer in a lot of kicking games, not exactly like catch since usually the idea is to get the ball past the other guy. This was all in the US, but I’d assume the same is done in other countries. Regular catch with a ball is a good eye hand coordination exercise, seems people would do something similar everywhere.
I grew up in the midwest. I played catch, my father played catch, and his father played catch. We like to play catch, we played catch, and we enjoyed playing catch.
One thing we never did though was “have a catch”.
I still hate that line from Field of Dreams.
When I worked at a research lab with dolphins, we did that for hours. They play catch with volleyballs. They can aim quite well when tossing them.
They were also adept at tossing frisbees, also with good aim.
For some strange reason, however, I never once saw them catch a frisbee. I never saw them even try to catch a frisbee.
ETA: At various commercial dolphin-show places I’ve visited, I’ve seen dolphins there also trying to play catch with visitors. They throw volleyballs at visitors, who rarely catch on that they’re supposed to throw it back to them and make a game of it. Most humans are just no fun at all. Ask any dolphin.
This seems very odd to me. In my area (Northeast United States), it is unlikely that adults would meet to ‘play’ catch but if there was a situation where adults where hanging around outside it would not be at all unusual for someone to pull out an (American) football or Frisbee and ‘play’ a ‘game’ of catch. A baseball is less likely mainly because it requires a little more pre planning, it is much easier if everyone has their own glove. If a man couldn’t throw or catch a ball he would be considered kind of a puss - someone foreign would probably get a pass though.
It is not uncommon to meet for pickup games of touch (American) football or ultimate frisbee among my friends either. The few people I know who play soccer or kickball do it through casual leagues.
I never saw the Movie but I always assumed that was some kind of regionalism / old timey expression. It sounds weird to me too.
I’ve never heard ‘have a catch’ except in movies. Maybe it’s regional. Maybe generational because it sounds like something my grandparents would say. But then English wasn’t their first language, and it does have that broken English kind of sound to it.
Tennis balls are often used in cricket practice to teach youngsters how to catch. You can develop the technique easily without risking broken fingers. Interestingly a tennis ball is somewhat more difficult to catch than a cricket ball so the safer method is actually more effective.
Various games of passing an object back and forth through the air are common in Norway, but except for playing with young children, badminton and frisbee probably beats balls of all kinds.
Which part? You quoted a paragraph containing half a dozen different ideas.
I didn’t cite frisbees because I didn’t think it was part of the subject. You need to buy a Frisbee purposefully to “play Frisbee”, whereas small balls are pretty much all around any place or car that has children.
In my day, soft balls could be tossed around sans glove. And even though the word “catch” wouldn’t be appropriate, I think a couple of kids kicking a soccer ball back and forth to each other could be considered the equivalent. Call it “playing kick” maybe?