Stickball

Living next to Willard School did have a few advantages. One was the ability to view the playing fields and stickball court from my bedroom window. The "court" as I call it was basically a wall built in the early 1960s that was probably erected to keep balls from bouncing off the teachers cars in the adjacent parking lot. People used one side for practicing their tennis stroke and kids like me and my younger brother used the other side for stickball. We played so much baseball as kids that my brother's left arm became so strong that his very first season in Tiny Tim League (8 and 9 year olds) he overwhelmed all the kids he pitched against with straight and true fast balls. He has always given me credit for this but it was largely his own talent and the good fortune of living next to a very active schoolyard.

In Spring and Summer it was baseball and in the Autumn we played football. Soccer wouldn't become popular in Ridgewood until the 1970s and, now it is played with a passionate intensity once only known by baseball and stickball players in town. The soccer Moms and Dads have produced leagues for the Spring and Autumn, plus road teams which travel to other towns for soccer tournaments. Kinda hard to imagine that for stickball. In fact, I don't know if there any other stickball courts in town. If my memory serves me none of the other schools have a wall with the proper dimensions for a game. Of course, you could always play against the school itself, which we did when the older boys were using the court. Though playing against the school was not the same and often times the janitors would tell us to stop for fear we would break a window.

Amazingly enough the wall we used for our games still stands and the last time I looked a batters box to determine balls and strikes was still visible on the wall. Hard for me to say if they play as often as we did. There are so many other sports and activities to draw kids attention that it wouldn't surprise if stickball was a lost art.