Lucky Strike Green had come home after the war, as had Dubble Bubble gum. Spaldeen roses could also be bought again, but now for ten cents instead of the pre-war nickels. There weren’t many new cars on the streets yet, so there was still plenty of room for punch ball, stickball, association football, and all our other games.
We thought that the end of the war meant that all war was over forever. We did not know that our envoys had agreed to partition Korea along the 38th parallel, that the Soviets had put Kim Il-Sung in charge north of the parallel, or that he intended to reunify the peninsula under communist control. Even if we had known, we wouldn’t have imagined that any of it could have any effect on any of us.
In the fall and winter we play roller hockey and association football. Starting in March we switch to punch ball and stickball. Marble season started on the Saturday after Halloween, but stoop ball lasted all year. The only thing that stopped the stoop ball was too much snow on the ground.
We follow the usual rules: one infielder, one outfielder; nine-inning games; if the ball hits the curb you’re hitting from, is caught before it bounces, or leaves the foul lines, you’re out. One rebound was a single, two a double, etc. If you hit the wall of the building across the street on the fly and the ball isn’t caught before it hits the ground, it’s a home run. Imaginary baserunners advanced one base on a single, two on a double.
The only difference was that instead of a portico, we hit the S-shaped ledges that ran three feet above the curb on the wall on the 88th Street side of 575 West End Avenue. They were perfect for hitting: seven-inch-tall white S-curves that stretched from the face of the wall between the ground-floor windows. If you hit the sweet spot on the convex part of the ledge, the ball shoots off a clothesline too high to catch before hitting 585 on the other side of the 88. Hit above the sweet spot and jump up or the ball hit by above the third floor of 585 and was easy to catch when it bounced. I hit the concave part of the S and the ball went into the infield.
Just as the 575 was perfect for hitting, the 585 was perfect to have in the outfield. It had battlements up to the third story that caused the ball to bounce in haphazard ways that the outfielders couldn’t predict. Matt: tall, big hands, good jumper, stood with his back to 585 ready to jump, or spin, back up and grab the rebound. He was our best outfielder, but he had a weak arm and couldn’t hit.
The two hardest guys to take out were Blue Book and Esau. Blue Book hit with a submarine move and could usually drop on singles unless Nate, who had been a soccer goalie in Switzerland and had the quicker hands at blocking, was playing infield.
Esau was our toughest pitcher. He punched straight down from so close to the wall that he sometimes skinned his knuckles. The Spaldeens were in high spirits. He bounces one off the sidewalk and it would go up to the third floor. When Esau hit the point at the bottom of the ledge, the spaldeen shot out going ninety and bounced two inches beyond the curb. Nate had to play in the middle of the street just to keep it on a solo.
When Blue Book and Esau were on the same team, they would load the bases with singles the first few times they got up, then go for home runs or keep hitting runners until they had fifteen runs to go and won on the kill rule. If Esau had been taller and a better outfielder, he might have been Number One in the Blue Book Stoop Ball Hall of Fame. As it was, he only made it with his batting.
