We used to play softball/hardball “work ups” when there weren’t enough people for teams. You got to stay at bat until you got put out and then you’d rotate to the outfield and work your way back up through the positions. If someone caught a fly ball, they would switch places with the batter.
We had multiple large piles of dumped dirt available that were about 20 feet tall. We played King of the Hill which was basically throwing the others down the side of the dirt pile for a couple hours.
There was also Midnight midnight hope the ghosts come out tonight. One person hides in the dark as the ghost. Everybody else sneaks around the outside of the house until the ghost appears to tag you. Everyone runs the rest of the way until they were back on home base and safe or the ghost tagged someone. This kept the adults up until 3:00 AM.
I remember playing one called “Poison”. You got a bunch of kids and a cardboard box, about the size of an office paper box. The box went in the middle, and all the kids formed a circle around it, holding hands, or actually wrists to get a good grip. Then, the tugging started. The object of the game was to yank as hard as you could to force someone else in the circle to touch the box. When you touched the “poison” box, you left the circle, and play continued until it was one on one, and the last kid standing was the winner.
I remember a similar game called “Spuds” - everybody had a number, and whoever was “it” bounced a ball off the ground while calling out another player’s number. Everybody but that player ran; the called player tried to catch the ball, and when he did, everybody froze. The player with the ball then tried to hit somebody else with it.
Those were the rules we used where I grew up, except that anything more than 2 bounces was worth 25, you couldn’t “catch” a ball that had rolled to a stop, and if you tried to catch it and didn’t, you lost points.
I heard that name used as well, but almost always, it was called simply, “Tackle the Guy with the Football” (and it was always a football).
As for Red Light Green Light, the only time I remember that being played was at the local roller rink - everybody tried to get from one end of the rink to the other, and the top three got something from the snack bar.
Smear the Queer
500
Freeze Tag - to unfreeze you had to crawl under the person’s legs.
Cops and Robbers - caught robbers went to base and had to be tagged free.
Red Rover - horrible game in retrospect but I loved it at the time
Sharks and Minnows - in a pool
4square
We used to play something called Rotten Egg. One person was the Witch and everyone else was an egg. I don’t remember much about it, other than the fact that each egg chose a color. I’m thinking the Witch had to guess what color the eggs were, because I remember coming up with colors like periwinkle and magenta. (Thank goodness for the 64-pack of Crayolas!)
Does this sound vaguely familiar to anyone, or was this something the neighborhood kids invented?
Our “smear the queer” was called Huckle Muckle. I remember in junior high we would play it at recess, and it was the subject of many assemblies and the reason for many detentions.
A rather dangerous game we played was "double decker chase’. We had a large, mature pine grove nearby, and you would play tag at the top of the trees. Climb up until the tree would sway, then rock back and forth until you could grab the next tree, and keep moving that way with “it” chasing you in the same manner. We stopped playing that one when one kid fell and broke his back.
Probably quit that game a little too late. That kid is still my friend today, and his back still hurts.
We played TV Tag–basically freeze tag but you had to say the name of a TV show.
I was a child of the 80’s, so maybe the PC movement had taken hold, the game others called “Smear the Queer” we called “Tackle the Man(with the ball)”
Tag we had a variant of which if you were about to be caught you could voluntarily assume a “frozen” pose, but there was a catch. You had to assume a famous pose and shout out the name of it. Like “Statue of Liberty”, “Hitler Salute”, or “Heismann Trophy”, and then freeze in that pose. You couldn’t repeat a “safe” pose and you couldn’t have the same pose as someone else. So it was limited immunity and it strained the brain a bit.
We had a game we learned from some friends out of town that we brought back to our neighborhood called “Piggy needs a signal” and it was a hide-and-seek variant where the “seeker” would stay near base and could call out hiding spots instead of running down the hidden players. Now, this may sound very easy for the seeker, but here’s the catch. Once caught the hidden players had to go to base and could then call out “Piggy needs a signal.” One of the still-hidden players could make a signal, sticking out an arm, or a leg, or even making a sound. This of course risked the seeker spotting one of the still-hidden breaking cover. But if the caught player saw it they could make a run for it. The seeker could chase them down, but if they did they ran the risk of leaving the base undefended. This was undesirable, because the way the seeker won was catching, and keeping, all the hidden players. BUT, the way the hidden players won was by getting someone back to base without being caught. There was a lot of depth to this game because it was full of tactical decisions on how far to hide from base, how far to roam as a seeker, where to hide so you could signal a fellow piggy, etc. And, unlike other hide and seek games, it rewarded players who could stealthily move from hiding spot to hiding spot and make a break for home base.
feckafree, we played a similar game we called “Colored Eggs” and all but one of the kids would gather and choose colors for themselves(no repeats allowed) and then once their huddle was complete the “Big Bad Wolf” would come a-knocking. It had ritualized dialog.
BBW: Knock, Knock
Eggs: Who’s There?
BBW: The Big Bad Wolf!
Eggs: What do you want?
BBW: Colored Eggs!
Eggs: What color?
At this point the wolf would begin guessing colors. If none of the “eggs” had picked that color they would reply in unison “Fresh out!” If they got one of the colors all the eggs would scatter and the wolf would pick off as many as they could(via tagging) while the eggs ran to some pre-designated areas(usually several to choose from, so they didn’t have to herd together) and then back to base. Then the surviving eggs would pick new colors(couldn’t use any that had been guessed so far) and it would repeat until the wolf either couldn’t guess the colors(usually got about ten tries to get at least one of the colors) or all the eggs had been caught.
Enjoy,
Steven
Mtgman, that’s it! Can I ask where you grew up? I grew up in W.Va.
Born and raised in Northeast Texas. My father was from W. Va though. I don’t recall him having taught us the game, but it’s possible he taught my older siblings and I learned it from them.
Enjoy,
Steven
One of my favorites as a kid was British Bulldog. Basically, there were two safe zones on either end of a field (or court or whatever). One player (the bulldog) starts in the middle, and all other players start in one of the safe zones. The bulldog then shouts out “British Bulldog”, and all of the other players have to try to run to the other safe zone without being caught (this happened when the Bulldog(s) lifted the player off the ground for long enough to shout something-or-other). Any caught player became another bulldog, and play continued until there was only one non-dog left (who then became the starting Bulldog for the next round).
We had to stop eventually after one of the boys (coincidentally, me) got injured at it, and so from then on, we instead played the completely-different-no-really-honest game Shetland Shepherd.
Many games utilized the street for their venue.
Until someone spied a automobile turning a corner or heading our way.
“CAR!”
We’d all scurry off the side of the road, the car would pass, and we’d resume play until the next car.