Spaldeens

More than baseball, basketball, stickball or football, I'd have to say punchball was our game of choice at PS 99. It was so easy to set up and it fit so nicely into the "schoolyot" (as my mom humorously said I pronounced it). Particularly the triangular-shaped yard near Avenue K. For the long-ball hitters, we sometimes placed outfielders on the other side of the iron fence on East 10th Street.

Did we ever let the girls play? Were they even interested? I can conjure up - even after half a century - the stances of my various classmates as they prepared to wack at the Spaldeen from home plate. Some with an undercut, others with a side stroke, some with an overhand. That was my style. There were even some classmates who tucked their thumb into their fist when they punched the ball.

The balls when new and bright pink had a powdery texture. The owner of this precious commodity would call "chips on the ball," meaning anyone who lost the ball by overpowering it into someone's back or front yard or accidentally threw it onto the first-floor roof of the school entranceway, had to replace it. After a while, the Spaldeen might split and we would shove the half-ball onto our chins for comic decoration.

So did I read in The New York Times that Spalding was making these balls again? I had no idea they were just tennis balls without the fuzz. Can we get a bunch of them and play a game after the Assembly on June 24 and work up a good appetite for the lunch at Lundy's? Anyone got a lead on where to buy them? No chips on the ball this time. And we'll let the girls play.