Page 93 - WhyAsInY

GaMes PeoPle PlayeD
the index finger to shoot bottle caps into squares chalked on a sidewalk or driveway in a particular sequence, but with the addition of a concept called “killing” (causing your own bottle cap to send your opponent’s flying out of the chalked playing area). Essentially, it was hopping, which boys would not consider, and killing, which girls couldn’t possibly do, that distinguished the games. For the record, boys would not consider playing jacks. (See Wikipedia for this one.)
Once we were old enough, if we didn’t play in the schoolyard of P.S. 193, we played on the side streets, with the most popular street game being Two-Hand Touch football. (Naturally, Appendix B contains a useful exegesis on some rules and tactics thereof.)
Located at the northeast corner of Bedford Avenue and Avenue L, P.S. 193 is now also called the Gil Hodges School, after the famed first baseman of the Dodgers, who actually lived nearby on Bedford. Because the neighborhood is now populated almost entirely by Orthodox Jews who wouldn’t dream of sending their (incredibly numerous) offspring to a public school (and who, for that matter, are unlikely to know who Gil Hodges was), 193, once purely a neighborhood school, had plenty of room and is now attended by students who for the most part live outside the original district. They are drawn by the school’s CIG (Center for the Intellectually Gifted) program. Of course, in the 1950s, it went without saying that P.S. 193 was already a center for the intel- lectually gifted. Just ask.
But I digress. If we did play in the schoolyard of P.S. 193, the sport would be softball, which would become my favorite of the sports that we played. My love for playing the game started with playing catch with my father and persisted until I moved from Scarsdale to New York City in May 1984. I had organized and participated in a men’s game on the grass (grass!) of Crossways Field on Sunday mornings, weather per- mitting, for close to twenty years, usually playing left field or first base, two positions that are suited to a slower-running left-handed player with, as noted above, a damned good outfield arm. It should also be noted that in my last official time at bat, in a father-son (or, in my case,
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