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STREET BASEBALL RULESStreet Baseball Rules Were Inner City PlayingHit Me With A Stick Or Hit The Ball With A Stick It Was Tough Out On The StreetInner City Street Basebal Rulesl were Rough and Tumble and Provided Lessons Which were not Classroom...Street Baseball Rules this was a brand of playing baseball which took no prisoners. The skills of playing were tempered with raw toughness and bravado not found on most of the playing ball fields.
Some of baseballs Hall Of Fame greats earned their spurs, in a manner of speaking, in the streets. Yogi Berra knew the street as a ball playing mecca. His first hard disappointment came when his buddy from the streets of St Louis Joe Garagiola was picked from the City of St. Louis and signed with the Cardinals. Yogi by fate was destined to be one of the Bronx bombers of our fabled and leading world champion teams the fabulous New York Yankees. My capability to speak from on site experience is limited. The stories and movies depicting play on the streets of New York and San Fransisco provides adequately the portrayal of this play. In the deep south our street baseball rules were more subdued and with less traffic to contend. There was toughness associated with a street playing style of, "take no quarter", you were expected to be tough. In most games of street baseball rules the game was often modified and a version of Cork Ball took on a life of its own. Street baseball rules was so prevalent on the streets of New York one of the all time greats Willie "Say Hey" Mays was often caught joining the youngsters there. Willie Mays our Baseball Hall Of Fame great player playing with the then New York Giants. The Giants and Willie moved on west and settled in San Francisco the city by the Bay and the place where Tony Bennett "Left His Heart" high on a hill.
Cork ball was popular in the streets and replaced street baseball in the urban living places other limited space areas, where windows were an ever present deterrent from using a baseball. Cork use was simply what it was.
The cork was nothing standard. Whatever size cork that someone had is what we used. Boys who lived in families that enjoyed fishing normally had access to many corks and of sundry sizes. Many times we had use of a round red and white colored cork. These round corks were prizes for the most common cylinder shaped corks, small on one end and larger on the other end, were real doozies to hit. For the bat, eureka, it was usually moms broken broom handle. Many a mom never knew how her good broom lost a handle. She would see the games in progress but being the good mom she was, she never complained about her broken broom handle. She knew. We simply thought we were sneaky slick. The most cork ball that I personally ever played was inside the inner courtyard of Auburn's Magnolia Hall. Magnolia Hall was the main boys dormitory of the Loveliest Village On The Plains, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama. Bill Sparks, Ronnie Syphers, Ross Wommack and Rip Riggins, were cork ball playing whammer jammers. Now the folks at Midfield High School probably never knew their coach was the cork ball hitting champion of Magnolia Hall. The only person that I knew who could hit better than Bill Sparks was Ross Wommack (he was a hitter too). The only time I remember observing a successful cross handed hitter was in cork ball. His name has completely slipped my mind. It has been several years. My Dad also would bat cross handed. The cork ball hitter would make me think of how Dad would hold the bat. Dad told me he used the cross hand to hold the bat because when he was young and helped Grandad clearing land to cultivate, he swung an axe that way.
My Dad was not a ball player, He truly enjoyed the games baseball and football, but being a dirt farmers son he had precious little time for ball playing. He did raise up six boys and two girls. The girls played some but all of us boys were given the time to enjoy playing ball. He started a family just as the depression was upon our land. His time was taken with making a living for us youngsters to enjoy baseball and other sports which he had missed. Being from the country and rural America my dad never had the exposure of playing baseball by street baseball rules. Baseball players from all walks of life learned to love the game and how to play from all the playing diamonds or from any corner even the street corner Street Baseball Rules was Baseball Playing by the Baseball Playground Rules. Free time, Let's go play a game! Batter Up---- Let's Play Ball.... Return to BaseballFarming our home page which is an introduction to the concept of baseball farming which includes ideas on strategies, training, and winning
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