When I was a kid, we played a game called stitch. It consisted of several people getting together and one of them throwing a rubber ball against a baseball-sized blue rubber ball against the wall. After the ball bouced back, someone would attempt to catch it. If he dropped the ball, he would have to start running toward the wall; meanwhile, someone else would get the ball and attempt to throw it at the person running toward the wall. If that person missed hitting his intended target, he would have to run toward the wall.
Does anyone else remember this game, or something similar? Are there variations on it? Other games people have invented?
Sorry about the second line. It should have read simply “It consisted of several people getting together and one of them throwing a baseball-sized blue rubber ball against a wall.”
Yep. We called it Wall Ball or Butt’s Up. The latter title having to do with the punishment if you missed catching the ball and could not touch the wall before another player threw the aforementioned ball against the aforementioned wall. Great game. We would often play with guys we didn’t know who had different rules. We would all settle in some hybrid version of the various games and happily play for hours.
Yes! We played it with a tennis ball or that little pink rubber ball that’s the size of a tennis ball. We called it Suicide or Suey. We were then banned from playing this at school recess because we might hurt someone with the ball. Once my friends and I played it anyway. We got caught, and had to write either 50 or 100 times as punishment, “I will not play Suicide at recess.”
Boy could that be taken out of context 
I definitely remember this game. In fact, I’ve been running an informal survey for years asking various people whenever the topic of elementary school comes up if they remember such a game. I’d say that a surprising number have played it or variants of it, and from many different places, including Houston (me), LA, Boston, Ohio, and others.
For my part, we called it “Butts Up” (much like Ol’ Gaffer and his friends). We’d normally play with a tennis ball or raquetball, and if someone else caught the ball, you’d have to run like hell to the wall while they tried to peg you (we also played a less violent–and thus less fun–variant where they tried to peg the wall instead of you). If they hit you before you hit the wall (or the wall before you did), then you stood against the wall with your back to them (butt up, as it were) while they got a free shot at you. Luckily, most of the kids I played with had terrible aim.
I probably played this game just about every day after school from 3rd to 6th or 7th grade. I remember it quite fondly…mainly because I tend to have good hands for catching.
We also played another variant at times called “Spread Eagle.” Same basic game, but this time, the punishment for not making it to the wall in time was standing face forward with arms to the side for the free shot. Even though this goes against the “more violent is better” rule, we didn’t play it as much, I think, purely because we were all kinda afraid of the extra danger down under that it involved.
You know, you might get more responses if you altered the thread title to mention “butts up” as an alternative name for “stitch,” which I’d never heard till just now.
Yeah, we played that pretty much every day before school or during lunch when I was a kid. At least 5th grade through 8th grade.
In addition to Wall Ball or Butts Up, we also called it Buns Up, and I’ve also heard it referred to as Bean Ball.
I am now a teacher and I can tell you that this game is still being played by school-age boys. (Only the toughest of the tomboy girls ever dared to play this game with us.)
Saw some kids playing Butts Up outside of school this morning. It is alive and well.
We played Wall Ball in little ole Texarkana back in the 80s. We played with a racquetball, which will leave a perfectly round bruise.
How about the finger ring game? You know, you make a circle with your thumb and index finger and try to get someone to look at it. If they look at it, you hit them on the shoulder. If they break your circle with their finger without looking at it directly, then they hit you on the shoulder.
The circle must be below the shoulder or it doesn’t count.