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Why (as in yaverbaum)
my case, the screwball. (I implore you to see Appendix B to obtain critical information on stickball itself and the probably lost art of “flooking.”)
When any one of those games was played, if something caused an obstruction or if there was another event that interfered with the action, the event was called a “hindoo”—and the result was a “do-over.” I am not clear as to whether hindoo was a corruption of hindrance (which I adjudge to be unlikely) or a racist name that was based on the strange- ness of the occurrence (unfortunately, more likely).
For obvious reasons, the spaldeen was a prized possession. Accord- ingly, when an errant spaldeen would appear to be rolling toward oblivion in a street-side storm drain, its owner would often yell, “I got chips,” meaning that everyone else would have to contribute to the cost of the replacement of the ball in the event that disaster could not be averted.
The other important product purveyed by Chodosh’s was Topps bubble gum, which was purchased not for the gum but for the accompa- nying cards that had pictures of major league baseball players on one side and their history and statistics on the other. It seemed as if Topps printed its cards in inverse relationship to the importance of the player pictured. A Mickey Mantle, particularly an early Mickey Mantle, which I never managed to get, was (and still is) treasured and very rare. On the other hand, in my experience, every fifth card was a Bob Kuzava, which pictured a journeyman left-handed reliever who did, however, have saves in the final games of the 1951 and 1952 World Series for the fourth of his eight teams, the Yankees. Some Topps cards in mint condition now garner huge prices.
While the cards were sometimes important because of the identity of the player whose face was pictured, their more important use was in “flipping.” (See Appendix B for a brilliant elucidation on the ins and outs of that highly skilled game.) Only boys flipped baseball cards. Girls in skirts or dresses (I think) played potsy, which involved a lot of hop- ping around a numbered matrix that was chalked on a sidewalk or driveway, and skipped rope. Boys played skelly, which involved using
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