I remember when i was a kid (late 80’s - early 90’s) we played a lot of wiffle ball. I remember in wiffle ball, we didn’t need to tag out the base runner; we could simply throw the ball at them to tag them before they reached the base. The same rule applied in kick ball too.
We had a big yard, and kids from all over town played with us, and these rules never seemed foreign to anyone.
We never played wiffle ball in school, but this rule applied in kick ball at recess and gym until 5th grade. I remember joining a kick ball league in 5th grade, and a “new rule”: we had to tag out the base runner.
The wiffle ball throwing tag ended on the sandlot when some of the older kids reached adolescence and could do some damage. We also began wrapping the wiffle balls in electrical tape to give them a little weight. We definitely didn’t throw the taped-up ball at each other for long.
Does anyone else remember this rule? Was it specific to my time and place?
I vaguely remember a game with a football called “fumble-annie” . it was kind of like rugby, but i really don’t remember much. I don’t think I’m remembering the name correctly because nobody i talk to remembers this game. Google gives me nothing.
From middle school through high school, before a big test, we played “Shoot for Review”. The class was split into two teams. The teacher would ask trivia questions relating to the upcoming test. If you answered correctly, your team got 1 point and you had a chance to shoot a basket.
The basket was the teachers waste paper bin. The ball was a couple sheets of paper crinkled up and wrapped in tape. You’re team got an additional 2 points if you made the basket, or you could go for 3. The 3 point line was the opposite wall of the classroom.
The winning team usually got a chance at an extra credit question or missed homework credit.
We played this game in a lot of classes. Even the more usual substitute teachers knew it.
Was this game specific to my school? Nobody i talk to remembers this game but my fellow classmates
First elementary school I went to didn’t allow throwing out in kickball. Next one did. I’ve seen it both ways. Don’t recall throwing out used in Wiffle ball, but usually if we weren’t doing something stupid with a hardball or softball we’d be doing something stupid with a Superball. Wiffle balls mainly got used indoors.
I remember the same wiffle ball an kick ball rules.
No sure of the “fumble-annie,” but I remember “kill the guy with the ball.” Everyone tried to tackle the kid with the football. And once he was tackled, someone else would grab the ball, and we’d all try to tackle him.
The big debate we always had between groups of kids was how ghost runners operated. Let’s say the batter hits/kicks a double, and needs to use a ghost runner there. The next batter hits/kicks another double. Does the ghost runner only advance when forced, or in parallel with the batter? So does he score in this situation, or end up at third?
I think ghost men only advance when they’re forced. It probably worked that way in many bad baseball video games at the time, so it seemed like the right thing to do. The ghost man is like the “computer” player in the game.
We often didn’t have enough guys to make a team that included a first baseman, so we had a rule called “pitchers hands” where if the ball was thrown to the pitcher before you got to first you were out.
Likewise we often didn’t have enough to field a full outfield, so if you’re a right handed batter any ball hit to the right of second base was ruled a foul.
One more: of course we had no catcher, so if you’re trying to score and the ball is thrown and reaches home before you did, you were out, or as we said, “ball beat you” or shortened to “ballbeechya”.
Most of my kickball experience was in Boy Scouts, not school. We had throw-outs. We played in an indoor gym, and also had a rule that a kicked ball that hit the basketball backboard was a home run. We also had a rule that a kicked ball that actually went through the hoop was a home run plus an additional four points, but I think that only ever happened once.
We’d play softball in the lot behind Hillel Academy in Squirrel Hill. There was a special home-run rule. A fly ball over the fence (difficult at our age) was an automatic home-run but the hitter had to retrieve the ball. The ball would be in a “mean person’s” yard and retrieval might mean running from them.
Remember “invisible baserunners” - if you were playing whiffleball with too few players, if you were on-base and needed to bat instead, you left an invisible baserunner on first (or second or third) and that base runner advanced as necessary.
When we played, the ghost runner advanced as many bases as the batter-runner. Guys from other neighborhoods would argue that a ghost runner on second scored on an outfield single or a sac fly to the outfield, but we never allowed that.
When we played it, we never used an actual Wiffle ball. That is to say, the Wiffle ball had holes in it to make throwing a curve easy. We used plastic balls.
Our games were 2 against 2, but my brother played all-time-first-base. Rather than a catcher, my neighbor had a “pitch back.”
Kids often interwove cloth tape to indicate a general strike zone, but our rule was that if the ball hit the net anywhere at all, it was a strike. And there was no fouling off pitch after pitch…a strike is a strike, and three strikes makes you out.
We were all righties. Hit the ball to right field was an instant out. Hit it on the roof of the house (left field)…home run. Off the wall of the house was a double. Lots of ghost runners.
We played the rule that the ghost runner advanced as many bases as the batter did and at the same speed. That was important, because you could put the ghost runner out on a beat ya:
Kicker hits a double. Nobody out. Ghost runner takes over.
Kicker hits a double, but the ball is thrown home BEFORE the batter touches 2nd base.
No run scored, 1 out, ghost runner on 2nd.
We played a 2 inning game with 2 outs, but each person was his own team. So you kicked until you were out, then played the field. Everyone kicked twice, person with the highest score won. Ties were either settled with extra innings if we had time or paper-rock-scissors if we didn’t. We usually had 5 or 6 kids playing.
ETA: However, the ghost runner was safe if the kicker was put out first and at whatever bag the kicker was trying for. So in my scenario above, if 2 results in the kicker being out trying for 2nd, the run scores.