Pickup Games Revisited
By Dr. Old School
February 14, 2008
Old School would like to begin this column with a letter from one of his many fans out there.
Would you please ask Dr. Old School what his shooting percentage was back in the early days of round ball (that's what they called it when he played at Harlan School on 35th Street in Wilmington, DE, in the early 50s)? He was never afraid to throw up a one-and-a-half-one-hander from anywhere on the hardwood or a scoop shot following a behind-the-back pass to himself.
Just curious
First of all, the identity of Old School is a closely guarded secret and would not be divulged to anyone, not even to his brother Joe. A hint: the fact that he was nicknamed “The Couz” should come as no surprise to the readers of Tee’s Weekly.
Old School does acknowledge a familiarity with that hoops location, although he also played in many a pickup game in many a backyard and playground in the old neighborhood. His shooting percentage was a phenomenal 52.6 percent from outside (there was no sissy three-pointer back in the day) and 91.3 percent with his underhanded scoop shot. At least, that’s the way the old feller now remembers it, though the fog of memory, like the fog of war, may betray him.
But the letter suggests a more disturbing phenomenon. Whatever happened to “pickup games”? They have almost disappeared from the experience of today’s youth. Everything is organized for young people today in every sport. It’s the controlling adults, not Old School’s generation, who have captured young people in the webs of their obsessive planning.
But, do you remember when summer was one long, luxurious hiatus with hoops, baseball, stick ball, and wall ball? Old School does. We were all the boys and girls of summer then. Friendships were formed and an occasional quarrel broke out, but you always came back the next day to begin again, to play again. Step ball was one of my favorites…aim the tennis ball at the tiny ledge at the corner of the step, make it sail over your opponents head into the sun-drenched sky or cricket-punctuated nights, land it on the pavement across the street…Homerun!
Wire ball…the most enthralling. Throw the tennis ball up as high and hard as your straining arm could launch it. Hit the wire and you’ve got a “homer”! Miss it and, Ikarus-like, it tumbled into the glove of your opponent…unless…unless…it hits the wire on the way down and, in a Lucretian swerve, the ball avoids its awaited fate and you dance around the imaginary bases.
You could also be caught up in the endless, evening games of relievio. “Caughty-caught caught…one, two, three, no break”…hiding in the dark, rushing to base, freeing your teammates with the exultant, “relievioooo.” No adults, then, to overplay the delicious, human tension between caught and free.
Sleep came easy then; caught us all in a rush. Exhausted limbs and relieved spirits. Forever young.
Excuse Old School’s lapse into lyricism. As Gee says, “things ain’t always what they seem.”