Barcalounge Skipper - From Dodgeball to Slugball

As part of a spirit day at the school where I teach, theAthletic Department organized a dodgeball tournament for students and faculty –that is, each grade level, eight through twelve, as well as the faculty had tocome up with teams to play against each other in a three round tournament.  The faculty could organize two teams, ascould the seniors.

As a huge fan of the film Dodgeball and an avid player in my youth, I couldn’t wait to signup, was eager for the tournament to start. The Athletic Director was nice enough to make up some spiffy shirts,inspired quite clearly by the movie.

The faculty team I was on would be facing the 9^thgraders in the first round, boys and girls of about 15 years old.  Lest you worry for their safety, let me saythat, first of all, we do not play dodgeball with the traditional red rubberball.  No we play with a set of smaller,dense foam balls that can be thrown quite hard but don’t have that slapping, resonantimpact of Old Red.  Secondly, most of thefaculty team are in their 30s and 40s, and while many of us could throw quitehard, we presented somewhat larger targets, and slow-footed ones at that.  Those 9^th graders are small andfast, and very good at avoiding things like hurtling foam balls, vocabularyquizzes, and vegetables.  I know this fora fact.  I used to teach them, when Icould catch them.

All this is to say that when the opening whistle blew andthe crowd began to cheer, and I a brave display of charging to midcourt andpicking up several balls, but my first set of throws didn’t work out.  The foam balls had a tendency to rise and cut– like a classic four-seam fastball.  My devastatingfireball throws sailed over my opponents heads. And while I was hanging out in the back dodging with the rest of thelumbering, perspiring teachers, I caught the most glancing of glancingest blowson the foot, and into jail I went.  The 9^thgraders made quick work of us.

The seniors eventually won the tournament in the end.  They always do with these things.

In talking with the Athletic Director the next day, we came aroundto the subject of other playground or street games: stickball, handball,stoopball, kickball, toss up and cream, and so forth.  The AD, who was from Florida, said that hewent to a school once where they played a game called slugball – an indoor variation I’d never heard of, using avolleyball. 

Slugball follows a basic kickball setup with three bases andhome, and a pitcher whose job it is to serve whoever is up at the plate with asuitable ball for slugging.  That is, theplayer up could punch (or slap, or poke) the ball with his hand orforearm.  Outs are made by a forceout atfirst, but teams could “stack” players on base to prevent a forceout at other bases.  If you were tagged by a player holding theball or pegged by a thrown ball between bases, that was also an out. Both theability to control the direction of the “slug”” and the option to not run thebases seem to give the team on offense a much wider range of options than inkickball.

You might check out Streetplay.comor the Wikipedia article for kickballfor all the variations of rules and codes.

I have two questions for readers – so feel free to offersome comments here on the blog:

1)     Have you ever played slugball, or somethingclose to it?

2)     What unique variations of playground games didyou play as a kid?