04/26/24
November 19, 2003
HomemadeSports : is dedicated to the sports you and your friends made up in your spare time. [via 37signals]
posted by kirkaracha to general at 05:49 PM - 17 comments
They're, uh... not real DEEP yet, huh?
posted by forksclovetofu at 08:21 PM on November 19, 2003
I submitted the sport of "burby" (baseball played against a school wall) to their site. I'm going to check back every so often to see if it's there.
posted by grum@work at 11:59 PM on November 19, 2003
"burby"? We just called it handball -- which was more apt, but should not be confused with the other handball. Often, it'd be one of those mini-basketball. More often, it'd be a tennis ball -- the small size of the ball made it more challenging. Back in grade school, the big sport around our school was "Four Squares". It was sort of a cross of handball/burby with tennis. We had pretty strict rules and scoring schemes too. While there wasn't any "end" to the game, as we didn't play to a certain score (just til' the end of recess), the primary goal was to work your way up to the "King" square (only the losers stayed in the "Jackass" square). Getting scored upon bumped you down a rank, so only the best of the best stayed at the top for long. Eventually, we started doing doubles too.
posted by mkn at 03:35 AM on November 20, 2003
Oh yeah, eventually we moved on to the more violent piggy-back wrestling. The guy doing the carrying could only move; while the guy being carried piggy-back was in charge of knocking the other guys off. Basically, if the guy you were carrying got knocked off of you, you were out. Numerous times, we would do grade 8 vs grade 7 battles. Oh man, let me tell you -- there never was a better guilt-free reason to beat up those grade 7s!
posted by mkn at 03:40 AM on November 20, 2003
AH yes! Four Square. That was a good one.
posted by gspm at 06:10 AM on November 20, 2003
I submit 'Flaming Asshole" - a game of skill and chance, where participants stick the end of ten or fifteen feet of toilet paper between their cheeks and set the other end on fire, then run away screaming until the fire catches up and singes their startfish. The winner is anyone watching. Some alcohol may be involved.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 09:21 AM on November 20, 2003
Weedy, I think Flaming Asshole would make a great spectator sport. But fuck no, I am never playing!
posted by billsaysthis at 10:55 AM on November 20, 2003
We played a game in grade school that was a variation of the horribly named "Smear the Queer." This was called "3-2-1 Contact," after the somewhat popular PBS science show, I guess. There was one goal in the center, and one football. The ball was kicked into the air and everyone scrummed for it, then tried to get the ball into the goal. With 10-15 guys playing, it was rare for anyone to score more than a point or two per game. If you were cleanly tackled or held by the mob for more than three seconds (hence the name), you had to give up the ball by either punting it or throwing it into the air. Interestingly enough, there was quite a bit of strategy to this. I learned to stand off to the side after a kick, waiting for the deflection. This gave you a chance to catch the ball on the dead run if you guessed right and head directly for the goal. Catching the ball in the pack also meant you were sure to be beaten senseless. There were also several chances per game where the ball lay motionless on the ground after a fumble or kick, with no one rushing to get it for fear of being blasted. I played 14 years of competitive football, but I think a couple of the hardest licks I ever took were on that playground.
posted by wfrazerjr at 11:47 AM on November 20, 2003
I played a bit of a soccer version of that game, wfraze...we called it World Cup and it was every man for themselves. If you scored, you got to play goalie until someone else scored on you. It was a perfect game (and not that different from the ants on a twinkie style soccer we played back in those days anyways) for 4-6 people. The games where 15-20 people played were chaotic though. It was good to be goalie if only to punt the ball as far as you could and make the little bastards run for each save you made.
posted by Ufez Jones at 01:24 PM on November 20, 2003
As a student, we played a game that was a sort of cross between frisbee throwing and badminton. We got quite competitive at it. We also had a less serious competition that involved trying to get round the perimeter of the room without touching the floor, while balancing a book on your head. Timed.
posted by salmacis at 04:43 PM on November 20, 2003
We had a game called "Chopping" in elementary school (high school, too, I think). Tennis ball and a bunch of crazy boys. To start, someone throws the ball as high up in the air as they can. First one to get it commences throwing it as hard as they can at any of the players (thus "chopping" the opposing player). Everybody else runs away like crazy, until the ball hits someone and/or goes loose. Then next person to pick up the ball gets to zing it at someone else. Keeps going that way. If two or more people go for a ball, and one finally gets it, the other player or players have a 1-2-3 count (by the "chopper") to run away from the guy with the ball. No points, no teams, all pain. Crazy, pointless fun.
posted by worldcup2002 at 04:57 PM on November 20, 2003
Oh, yeah, we did have a rule that you couldn't hit above the shoulders. Anyone who got hit on the head got a foul ball, and a free shot at the offender, who had a 1-2-3 count in which to get away before they got "chopped". Lotsa good aerobic and acrobatics. People sprinting all over the place, diving, twisting to miss getting whacked. People came to class with ball marks on their uniforms where they got hit. Hahaha.
posted by worldcup2002 at 05:00 PM on November 20, 2003
Oh yeah, worldcup2002, we did that too. Never heard the term "chopping" for it though. We'd also do similar styled games against the school wall -- murderball and redass, and some chopping/handball variants. Ahhh, the violence of youth!
posted by mkn at 05:18 PM on November 20, 2003
Smear the queer. Hammer the dude with the ball. We also played Sokum in gym class, which was two teams playing dodge ball against each other. I think they played it on South Park but just called it dodgeball.
posted by vito90 at 09:25 PM on November 20, 2003
In elementary school we used to play a variation of hockey with lacrosse sticks, only indoors. Okay, so maybe it was in college. Whatever. We had a lot of time on our hands, alright? It was strictly two players, played in a dorm room, and the object was to shoot the lacrosse ball under your opponent's bureau on opposite side of the room. Banking the ball off a wall or a bed was allowed, as was checking your opponent. The game usually ended at five points, but the game sessions themselves usually ended when someone's knuckles were bleeding too much to continue. 86 was there, maybe he remembers more. I recall going to a keg party one night and our friend Anita asking us, "My God, what have you guys been doing to each other?" College. Good times, good times.
posted by Samsonov14 at 12:03 AM on November 21, 2003
Oh god ... I forgot about basenis. At college, we had a couple tennis courts right behind the dorm. One of them lacked a net, and for a goof we played on that court. I had been on my way home from an intramural softball game, and I put my mitt on and started catching my buddy's returns. We had a laugh as he tried to shoot shots past me, and then he ran back upstairs to grab his glove, and we started playing an odd version of ... well, I don't know how you would describe it. This evolved over time to a game where you could either catch the ball with your glove to control or shoot a return back with the racquet. Catching the ball, however, meant you had to drop it out of your glove and let it bounce to hit it back. The ball had to bounce on the other side of the court to count as a score, and the singles lines were the posts. The fun came when someone charged the net to get a better angle to slam a ball at the baseline. If you didn't hit it right, your opponent then had you about 30 feet away lined up for a kill. Drilling your opponent with a shot counted for three points, and hurt like a mofo. We ended up with quite a few of the guys in the dorm playing on a regular basis. We also played baseball inside the two courts wearing mitts and hitting with tennis racquets. If the ball left the fenced area for any reason (foul ball, home run), the batting team's inning was over immediately. Otherwise, it was like wiffle ball (line drives rule!) ... expect pitching a tennis ball to a 6-3 guy wielding a racquet about 40 feet away really sucked. I took one in the left eye and had a closed shiner for a week. Attractive.
posted by wfrazerjr at 09:36 AM on November 21, 2003
I have seen Arena Ball. And it was good. And the Pantheon chuckled heavily upon it. Soon posters, lurkers, and trolls of every denomination gathered 'round, that they would lobbest the SuperBall®. In all his glory, denouncing the "Spork" and the troglodyte who dares to wield it.