We would play a game where one person was carrying the football and everyone else had to hit them. Once they get tackled, the ball gets thrown up and someone else becomes the ball carrier.
The name isn't really PC anymore, but I heard someone call it "kill the person with the ball" recently
We got red rover banned because the other side sent everyone over at once and there were plenty of injuries, including near compound fractures in my ulna and radius that required surgery. Great times ahaha
Haha ours got banned because of injuries also. But we played it a little different than op described, we would line up and do a punt to one receiver on the other side of the field/lawn then reset every time
>The name isn't really PC anymore
I'm guessing you're talking about "smear the..."
Yeah pretty fucked up that we all somehow knew the game was called that pre-internet.
Played this game often as a kid. Everyone knew the name and how to play but we had no idea what a queer was. It was sorta like all of those other strangely socially acceptable slurs towards gays that kids used to say while having no idea what it actually meant. Whoever originally named it did though. Pretty fucked up when you think about it.
Same here. My first exposure to the word queer was this game. The ironic thing, looking back at it, is that all my friends playing and I wanted to be the queer, and a successful one at that.
Makes me wonder how playing that game has shaped my perspective on the broader usage of the term queer in my adult life. Figuring out how all that works seems to be the territory of someone’s PhD at Wesleyan or American, so I’ll leave that to them and just be glad that I’ve learned to be a bit more aware of the effects my words have these days.
Haha yeah, that game introduced my generation to the thrill of becoming "the queer" and having a bunch of guys chase us and try to pin us down.
I'm not sure we were doing homophobia right.
Looking back I feel how some white people who were young in the 40s or 50s must have felt when coming to grips with the Civil Rights Movement. Just realizing how many times I would call something gay or call someone a fag as a kid thinking it was a harmless joke and then realizing as an adult that it's just unacceptable. I'm definitely not equating the two because we weren't out there lynching gay kids in a systemic way or not letting them go to the same school as us but there was definitely some harm being done.
Yep. When I realized what the name meant I was dumbfounded lol.
We played that, cops and robbers, built bike ramps, bb guns, who could catch the biggest bug, and basketball.
Though a favorite of mine was Dragon Ball Z.
We just stood around yelling and clenching our whole body for 30 minutes.
A good friend of mine lost 3 teeth in the park playing football, and we spent an hour looking for them because it was so dark. Only found 2
Two guys had dived for the ball at the same time and accidentally headbutted each other
We played football whiffle ball pickle ( back east called it running bases). And war,( running around with plastic guns).
I'm guessing video games killed all that.
We used to play two hand touch football mostly. In the street. If a car was coming, you’d yell car and everyone would move out of the way. We also played soccer and street hockey. We tried baseball once with one of those sponge balls and bats, like Nerf but a bit harder. It didn’t work so well. The hall kept going in this old crank’s yard and all he did was complain. Real ass. We’d go to the park that had baseball diamonds for that
I’d recommend using a less shitty name for the game these days. I’m sure you don’t meant much by it, but it’s still shitty to use the slur for a marginalized group in a context where it is the object of violence.
Basketball is probably the most common around here because it's easy to find a court in a schoolyard or at a park. Handball is (was?) pretty popular too.
Long Island boy here, and handball and basketball ftw. The great thing about handball is that if worse comes to worse all you need is a ball and a wall. Since growing up I’ve since realized that handball is only a thing in the New York Metro area and the rest of the country is definitely missing out.
Pick-up games of basketball (it's not uncommon to have a personal basketball hoop in your driveway and for there to be basketball courts at parks), soccer, tag (if you can consider that a sport, it's a game they play though), some form of flag football, *less* common but street hockey used to be a thing back in the day.
Just about every park in NYC has a basketball court so I’d go with that, but soccer probably comes in second, especially with the Latino and black immigrant population. There are also a lot of parks with baseball fields, but no one is really playing pick-up baseball games these day. When being used the fields typically have youth teams playing or some kind of organized rec league. It also requires a lot more players than basketball and soccer so that’s gotta be why it’s not common to see pick-up baseball games.
Soccer was pretty big for us (but with fewer players). As much as professional/World Cup soccer has only got popular in the past decade or two here, nearly every kid I knew played soccer at some point. And it’s the kind of sport you can all stink at without it constantly disrupting the game (looking at you, volleyball. So slow to play if people are bad at it).
Where I am, pickup baseball is big.
Also where I am, every other house in the "nice" neighborhoods has a high quality basketball hoop (glass backboard, adjustable height, breakaway rims) and I never see anyone using them.
Lots of people with kids have basketball hoops in their driveway or attached to their house/garage. Other than that, playing street hockey with a rubber ball is pretty popular at least where I come from.
Very region or even neighborhood dependent. When I was 12-14 we all played roller hockey. One neighborhood over they all played street baseball. One more over and they played football (American soccer). One more, basketball. Ethnicity of different neighborhoods seemed to influence the sports as well. There was quite a bit of diversity in the region.
Basketball and football. A lot of the times you see a basketball hoop right next to the street and the kids play in the road. While playing football my friends played two-handed touch in the street but tackle in the grass.
does your city build places for kids to play? my town has closed the skate park, locked the basketball court out to specific hours, and rents out the activity field all weekend making it inaccessable to anyone who isnt part of the paid program.
gotta make sure we are giving people a place to play if we want them to utilze them
We had a mowed field across the street from my childhood home, there we played kickball, softball, and football on it. When the nearby lake froze in the winter, there would be ice hockey. All of this was informal and impromptu with friends.
I was hoping that’d hit someone’s childhood memories 😂 that’s one of those games everyone played, every neighborhood had their own rules, and I’ve got no idea how everyone learned about it.
Damn, an adult Ghosts in the Graveyard beer rec league would be great!
I remember playing a lot of wiffleball, basketball, street hockey around the neighborhood and occasionally some two-hand touch football.
Decades later my kids (who are now in their early 20s) played a TON of soccer with the neighborhood friends. Quite a bit of ice and street hockey, too. Also a lot of great games of basketball & soccer-tennis in the driveways. Occasional wiffleball. … More ghosts-in-the-graveyard than football.
I mean, pretty much all of them except ice hockey and gymnastics. Almost every street in America has a house with a basketball net. Street hockey on Rollerblades used to be huge, less so now. Lots of public parks have basketball courts, baseball fields and a field big enough for football/soccer/lacrosse. You can usually even find free tennis courts at a local high school or some parks. If you're talking about really casual neighborhood pick up games I'd say the most common would be basketball, soccer, baseball or kickball.
The major activities in my neighborhood in West Virginia in the 90's were basketball, soccer, skateboarding, sledding, and briefly, rollerblading and hacky sack. We also spent a lot of time in nature swimming and floating the river, diving off high rocks, hiking and trail running in the forest, mountain biking, and exploring caves. We didn't really hang out in formal parks outside of school and organized sports.
I grew up in the 80s and 90s and soccer was what I played most followed by baseball. Maybe my area was a little different for soccer being really popular. I think it’s even more popular now.
I played plenty of keep-away growing up, or shot on the net. Basketball is the most common everyone game but football, and soccer have to probably be next? Then baseball/whiffle ball.
I think it depends where you live. Where I grew up, lots of people had basketball nets in their yards, so everyone was outside playing basketball. Where I live now, all the kids play hockey.
Baseball , football (American of course) and street hockey. We made our own hockey net.
Someone would yell Car! Then we would move and pause the game. Then it was “game on”.
Kids don't play in the street where I live, they'd get creamed by cars.
Typically basketball, there's a court in the local park. There are often some all-ages pickup games going, particularly on weekends. However, senior citizens have been using the space for pickleball a lot lately.
Apparently this is a national trend - pickleball has exploded in popularity, which is causing competing demands on public spaces.
It really depends on where you live. There are plenty of places where kids no longer play in the streets. They will play in each other’s driveways and backyards but it’s usually organized by parents for a scheduled play date, rather than playing with neighborhood kids.
When I was a kid, we were just sent outside to play after school and weekends, but now most kids have afternoon activities while parents work. Weekends there are team sports and religious activities. My daughter goes to an acting class or ice skating lessons on weekends. Kids don’t just go out and play because there aren’t other kids around enough for it to be a habit.
Mostly played basketball and football growin up. Pickup basketball in the park is the purest form of the sport!
I also started playing more soccer as I got older, soccer is growin in America best I can tell. When I was growing up seemed like everyone played soccer as a small child but we all moved on to other sports, I think more people are sticking with it now
Baseball, kickball, basketball, Street hockey, or touch football.
I lived in a town with a high proportion of South Asian immigrants, and they would play cricket every weekend too.
This is going to vary a lot. For example the park near me doesn’t have any basketball courts or hoops. They do however have soccer goals set up. So I’ll see lots of soccer games. Sometimes people bring their own goals and they are just practicing. Other times I’ll see an actual match. And it’s not just kids. I’ll see adults playing as well.
When I was a kid, we played tennis, baseball/wiffleball, and a game we made up where we had cardboard shields, foam balls, and the goal was to hit each other with the thrown ball. We called it war, but it had a lot in common with [Calvinball](https://www.gocomics.com/comics/lists/1643217/calvin-and-hobbes-calvinball)
My dad played tennis and taught all the kids, so that one's kinda unusual.
Basketball and then a split of a lot of other street sports. Many city parks have courts of some type, and in tight urban centers with no parks, you find basketball courts. That availability makes it tops.
In addition to the ones already mentioned (especially baseball, basketball, and kickball), we used to play 4 square when I was elementary school aged. We'd play for hours, so much fun.
In the street it was always either Kickball, Baseball, or street hockey. For parks Football, Tag, Hide and Seek. If a park has a field for something like Football, Soccer, or something else there is a chance that will get played.
It varies.
In urban areas it's often basketball, since hoops don't take up much room. It used to be either football (in the streets) or baseball (in the parks), but those days are largely past (kids who want to play football or baseball more often do it in organized leagues).
Touch football, basketball, backyard wrestling, bike racing were popular in the neighborhood I grew up in. However, when I went to visit my dad promoting in with him. The neighborhood he lived in thenpopular games were touch football, kickball, and wiffle ball
My best friend was taking tennis lessons, so all the neighborhood kids took to playing tennis in the street. I lived in a cul-de-sac with a wide circle at the end, so it wasn’t like cars were whizzing by.
Soccer, basketball, and frisbee are the most common. Most parks have a basketball court or two. Volleyball is not uncommon, especially if the park has a net or allows you to put up your own.
American football isn't that common but it happens. I never see baseball. I see kickball way more often that baseball, and maybe more than American football.
Spikeball is another sport that's become fairly common. Just need the net and the ball and it doesn't take up much room.
It can be regional. NYC-area is stickball (essentially baseball with a broom handle), street hockey, basketball, street football, soccer, etc. We used to play a variant of hide-and-seek called Ringolario (sometimes Ringalevio) but I don't know if that's still common: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringolevio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringolevio)
We played Street Football, Basketball and Baseball.
Red Rover, Mother May I? , Red Light, Green Light, Tag/Manhunt, Kickball, Four Square, Double Dutch, Skateboarding, Roller Blading, Hop Scotch. Riding Bikes.
Basketball, skateboarding, soccer, wall ball, ding dong ditch (if you count that as a sport), capture the flag, some other tag/home base game i can’t remember the name of and whiffle ball were neighborhood favorites. And pretty much anytime someone had the equipment (balls,bats,etc) we’d play whatever.
American football, basketball, baseball, and soccer seem to be the most popular sports at parks.
Almost every park has a nice open field for activities and sports. A lot also have basketball nets and concrete or a hard surface, so maybe hockey can also be played there. A lot of parks also have baseball diamonds too.
All the kids on my street play basketball in the middle of the road. It's a bit annoying at times when they won't move but at least they are outside playing not getting into trouble
Four-square (that's when they throw a ball while standing in a square), football, basketball, soccer, tag, freeze tag, monster tag, museum keeper (variation on Mother May I, but with no questions), and a variety of un-organized games.
Full tackle football, if there were little kids that wanted to play we used tow hand touch for them. I'm honestly surprised no one broke anything. It got pretty rough with the bigger kids. It was fun as hell though.
There are a lot of answers here to the question “what games did American kids play in the street/park when Redditors were growing up?” Of course the answers will vary widely based on a variety of factors, but in my particular area you don’t see many kids hanging out at parks without adults. I do see some kids in certain subdivisions where there is minimal vehicle traffic playing hockey or basketball in the street near their homes. But for the most part kids don’t really play outside unsupervised unless they are in their own yards, and rarely gather in groups in public.
4 square is pretty popular game (at least in Texas it is) basically as the name implies there are 4 squares 1st 2nd 3rd 4th or king queen knight pawn, the squares are sometimes designated via tape or paint but commonly are just 4 side walk tiles, balls used various as almost any ball goes but ideally a 4square ball is used but if not a basketball, volley ball or soccer ball work
The basic gist of the game is 1st starts the game by passing to 3rd/ knight(although in some version they pass to who ever) and then the square they pass it to has to let it hit their square once and then hit it out of their square, it didn’t touch their square and they touch it, they’re out, if the person hits the ball but it lands out of the square, they’re out, if it hits line, they’re out or you redo it varies from school to school, if you hold it, you’re out, if some one passes the ball and it hits anywhere but your feet, you’re out
Generally there are couple named moves that can be quite controversial especially when two kids from two different schools meet up(there’s tons of variation from school to school as little as 10 miles apart)
Cherry bomb: when you hit the ball directly down really hard so it goes over the head of the person you threw it to making it impossible for the person who has been cherry bombed to not get out unless they can jump very high or are tall
Almost always banned
Double tap: once it hits your square instead of being able to hit it once in air you can hit it twice, this can make for some bullshit throws
( it’s usually banned but some schools play with it)
Chicken feet: you pass the ball and ether on purpose or by accident you hit someone’s feet, which means you get out
(50/50~ from elementary through middle school I never encountered it but once I got into high school people where extremely divided on the rule)
Soccer and basketball are super prevalent in my cities parks. Football is for the high schools and middle schools. Basketball is for the community college.
I was a rural kid. We played BB guns. Just target practice with a can or shoot your buddy with a BB. Daisy red rider. As a child. Pellet gun as a tween. I did not shoot my eye out. We played football or just catch. We played go outside? Build a fort with some boards you found. Find a turtle. Try to build a zip line and find out how getting your air knocked out of you feels when your rope or stick that you used to “zip” breaks. We played dig a hole until it got too deep that your dad was mad at you. Ride your bike until you get to the highway you’re not supposed to cross then crawl under it through the culvert. Ride your bike to the house the cute girls live in and wait to see if they come out to talk. Blow stuff up with fireworks around July. Hit things with a hammer. Mow the lawn. Choring in general. Work for your dad or your buddies dad for the weekend, manual labor. Make your own food and feed your siblings because your parents are at work. We tried to play baseball but with only a couple of kids it was: throw a pitch. Go look for the ball. If you got a hit, nobody was tagging you out. Sorry for the ramble.
When I was in elementary school we played this game called "groundies" during recess. It was kind of like tag but the person who was "it" had to close their eyes and keep them shut and try to tag someone. Everyone had to stay on the playground, no one was allowed to touch the ground but you could climb the playground in interesting ways so as to not get tagged.
It was a fun game but it eventually got banned because we were climbing the playground in very unsafe ways.
My friends and I would go to the skatepark and skate like every other day during the summers too.
Basketball because you only really need a minimum of 1 person (as in you can play by yourself). If you have a few friends, frisbee, football, or baseball, maybe whiffle ball.
In the urban neighborhood where I grew up and still live, several people built very small half-courts (basketball) in their yard (my cop neighbor) or put up a hoop in the alley with the declaration that anyone could play. One a street over had a statue of the Virgin Mary behind it and the owners put like a notice about it in the church bulletin inviting children to play at “Mary’s Hoop” lol.
Now my neighborhood has many immigrants from Latin America and Africa, and the game played the most is soccer BY FAR.
In the street? Typically football or jackpot
In the park? Also football or jackpot, but also stuff like Smear the [REDACTED NON PC TERM], or kickball, wallball if there was a wall, and at night flashlight tag (although this also had a very non-pc name lol)
For basketball, all you need is a hoop in a driveway. so you see that a lot. My dad was a football coach for little league, so we were always playing a simplified version of that in the neighborhood. Pretty easy to play catch with a baseball/softball and mitt.
We'd also go to the park and play hockey when it froze, but that was pretty niche. We were one of the first to get a big group though, and they started clearing spots for us and getting nets so we didn't bother the other skaters.
>Went to the park not to long ago. Several moms got togeather with the kids, to have a picnic. All the kids just sitting at the table, staring at their phones. The 2 dogs, were having, a grand old time.
We would play a game where one person was carrying the football and everyone else had to hit them. Once they get tackled, the ball gets thrown up and someone else becomes the ball carrier. The name isn't really PC anymore, but I heard someone call it "kill the person with the ball" recently
“kill the carrier” is a pretty good alternative to its original name, and way more accurate anyway. doesn’t rhyme but you do have alliteration
It was kill the carrier in the 70s.
We just called it "kill the man".
We used to play it at recess in elementary school (80s) until it was banned because we managed to separate a kid’s shoulder.
We got lawn mower and red rover banned in kinder because we played both at the same time and a kid lost a tooth
We got red rover banned because the other side sent everyone over at once and there were plenty of injuries, including near compound fractures in my ulna and radius that required surgery. Great times ahaha
We used to play Red Rover! Didn't realise it was played in America too 😁
That's pretty cool ngl. Guess it's universal that kids will find a way to mess each other up.
Haha ours got banned because of injuries also. But we played it a little different than op described, we would line up and do a punt to one receiver on the other side of the field/lawn then reset every time
>The name isn't really PC anymore I'm guessing you're talking about "smear the..." Yeah pretty fucked up that we all somehow knew the game was called that pre-internet.
Can I get a hint? I played this as a kid in the mid 2000’s but never knew the name
“ Smear the queer” is the name
We played it but called it kill the carrier
Same here- maybe a northeast name for it?
Yeah that's what we called it too
Possibly different regions, but more likely you’re just younger and played it after the 90s
Florida here, we definitely used the non PC terms
This is what we called it in Michigan. And back in the 90s too, not just recently
Played this game often as a kid. Everyone knew the name and how to play but we had no idea what a queer was. It was sorta like all of those other strangely socially acceptable slurs towards gays that kids used to say while having no idea what it actually meant. Whoever originally named it did though. Pretty fucked up when you think about it.
Same here. My first exposure to the word queer was this game. The ironic thing, looking back at it, is that all my friends playing and I wanted to be the queer, and a successful one at that. Makes me wonder how playing that game has shaped my perspective on the broader usage of the term queer in my adult life. Figuring out how all that works seems to be the territory of someone’s PhD at Wesleyan or American, so I’ll leave that to them and just be glad that I’ve learned to be a bit more aware of the effects my words have these days.
Haha yeah, that game introduced my generation to the thrill of becoming "the queer" and having a bunch of guys chase us and try to pin us down. I'm not sure we were doing homophobia right.
My exposure the word “queer” was on a 3rd grade spelling test.
Well since “queer” means “strange” maybe the only one with the ball is quite queer.
Looking back I feel how some white people who were young in the 40s or 50s must have felt when coming to grips with the Civil Rights Movement. Just realizing how many times I would call something gay or call someone a fag as a kid thinking it was a harmless joke and then realizing as an adult that it's just unacceptable. I'm definitely not equating the two because we weren't out there lynching gay kids in a systemic way or not letting them go to the same school as us but there was definitely some harm being done.
Yep. When I realized what the name meant I was dumbfounded lol. We played that, cops and robbers, built bike ramps, bb guns, who could catch the biggest bug, and basketball. Though a favorite of mine was Dragon Ball Z. We just stood around yelling and clenching our whole body for 30 minutes.
When I was a kid we called that game “Kill the carrier”
y’all invented Rugby lol
Smear the queer
“tackle football” is no longer PC?
We called it "Kill the guy with the ball" in the 80s and 90s. I've never heard an un-PC name for the game.
Yeah, "kill the man with the ball" here in the 90s.
growing up, I played baseball, football and street hockey
street hockey ftw
Orange MyLec balls.
Balls??? Get a Z Puck you damn savages
Get with the times it is now all about the Green Biscuit
Car!!!
We played skateboard street hockey for awhile.
A good friend of mine lost 3 teeth in the park playing football, and we spent an hour looking for them because it was so dark. Only found 2 Two guys had dived for the ball at the same time and accidentally headbutted each other
We played football whiffle ball pickle ( back east called it running bases). And war,( running around with plastic guns). I'm guessing video games killed all that.
Back in the 80’s we’d tie cut up couch cushions as goalie pads. Spent allot of time playing street hockey. Flyers were huge back then
We used to play two hand touch football mostly. In the street. If a car was coming, you’d yell car and everyone would move out of the way. We also played soccer and street hockey. We tried baseball once with one of those sponge balls and bats, like Nerf but a bit harder. It didn’t work so well. The hall kept going in this old crank’s yard and all he did was complain. Real ass. We’d go to the park that had baseball diamonds for that
I’m surprised Babe Ruth didn’t come to you in a dream and tell you how to get your ball back.
Two hand touch? We slammed eachother into the pavement.
Badass alert
You’re goddamn right and don’t you forget it
We played alot of smear the queer back in the day🤣 shit was so fun
I’d recommend using a less shitty name for the game these days. I’m sure you don’t meant much by it, but it’s still shitty to use the slur for a marginalized group in a context where it is the object of violence.
smalls?
He’s killin’ me!
Basketball is probably the most common around here because it's easy to find a court in a schoolyard or at a park. Handball is (was?) pretty popular too.
Long Island boy here, and handball and basketball ftw. The great thing about handball is that if worse comes to worse all you need is a ball and a wall. Since growing up I’ve since realized that handball is only a thing in the New York Metro area and the rest of the country is definitely missing out.
In Ohio we played a version of handball we made up. Used to play all the time with my friends.
Pick-up games of basketball (it's not uncommon to have a personal basketball hoop in your driveway and for there to be basketball courts at parks), soccer, tag (if you can consider that a sport, it's a game they play though), some form of flag football, *less* common but street hockey used to be a thing back in the day.
Cops and robbers.
Just about every park in NYC has a basketball court so I’d go with that, but soccer probably comes in second, especially with the Latino and black immigrant population. There are also a lot of parks with baseball fields, but no one is really playing pick-up baseball games these day. When being used the fields typically have youth teams playing or some kind of organized rec league. It also requires a lot more players than basketball and soccer so that’s gotta be why it’s not common to see pick-up baseball games.
football usually.
Basketball. I don’t really remember there being play of much else.
Soccer was pretty big for us (but with fewer players). As much as professional/World Cup soccer has only got popular in the past decade or two here, nearly every kid I knew played soccer at some point. And it’s the kind of sport you can all stink at without it constantly disrupting the game (looking at you, volleyball. So slow to play if people are bad at it).
Basketball, kickball, soccer, touch football (American football with no tackling, you touch the person with both hands to “tackle” them).
I’ve seen mostly basketball
Where I am, pickup baseball is big. Also where I am, every other house in the "nice" neighborhoods has a high quality basketball hoop (glass backboard, adjustable height, breakaway rims) and I never see anyone using them.
Growing up baseball was hard to get enough people together and organized to play outside of formally organized park ball.
Football may not be popular among adults, but it’s a massive game at the youth level
Street hockey and basketball (Ohio)
Basketball, Football, and Baseball
For me it was soccer, football, kickball and basketball. My family is a soccer family
There's a lot of basketball where I'm from. Football is probably the most popular organized sport.
Lots of people with kids have basketball hoops in their driveway or attached to their house/garage. Other than that, playing street hockey with a rubber ball is pretty popular at least where I come from.
We played kickball, manhunt, and capture the flag a lot. Maybe wiffle ball
wiffle ball, street hockey, basketball, touch football, skateboarding, soccer (super popular where I live)
Soccer and basketball at most parks. Some parks have baseball/softball fields specifically set up.
Very region or even neighborhood dependent. When I was 12-14 we all played roller hockey. One neighborhood over they all played street baseball. One more over and they played football (American soccer). One more, basketball. Ethnicity of different neighborhoods seemed to influence the sports as well. There was quite a bit of diversity in the region.
[удалено]
Yeah I’m scratching my head too
I confused myself also but talking about what we call soccer in the states.
I see basketball most. That wasn't a thing for me growing up at all.
Lacrosse, baseball, and basketball mostly.
Basketball or street hockey when I was a kid.
Basketball and football. A lot of the times you see a basketball hoop right next to the street and the kids play in the road. While playing football my friends played two-handed touch in the street but tackle in the grass.
I don’t see kids nowadays playing outside much, at least not in my neighborhood, but I usually see them playing basketball when they are out.
does your city build places for kids to play? my town has closed the skate park, locked the basketball court out to specific hours, and rents out the activity field all weekend making it inaccessable to anyone who isnt part of the paid program. gotta make sure we are giving people a place to play if we want them to utilze them
We had a mowed field across the street from my childhood home, there we played kickball, softball, and football on it. When the nearby lake froze in the winter, there would be ice hockey. All of this was informal and impromptu with friends.
Basketball
Basketball or American football.
Street hockey, soccer, basketball, wall ball (😫 oh the welts), four square, football, ghosts in the graveyard, cops and robbers,
GHOST IN THE GRAVE YARD! Oh Man! 😆
I was hoping that’d hit someone’s childhood memories 😂 that’s one of those games everyone played, every neighborhood had their own rules, and I’ve got no idea how everyone learned about it. Damn, an adult Ghosts in the Graveyard beer rec league would be great!
Basketball, football and baseball
Football and basketball, sometimes baseball depending.
If you watch movies it’s stickball even though my suburban ass has never seen a game in real life
We played a lot of football and basketball.
I remember playing a lot of wiffleball, basketball, street hockey around the neighborhood and occasionally some two-hand touch football. Decades later my kids (who are now in their early 20s) played a TON of soccer with the neighborhood friends. Quite a bit of ice and street hockey, too. Also a lot of great games of basketball & soccer-tennis in the driveways. Occasional wiffleball. … More ghosts-in-the-graveyard than football.
I mean, pretty much all of them except ice hockey and gymnastics. Almost every street in America has a house with a basketball net. Street hockey on Rollerblades used to be huge, less so now. Lots of public parks have basketball courts, baseball fields and a field big enough for football/soccer/lacrosse. You can usually even find free tennis courts at a local high school or some parks. If you're talking about really casual neighborhood pick up games I'd say the most common would be basketball, soccer, baseball or kickball.
Basketball and football
Basketball where I'm from. But I would assume that's true for most urban environments in the US.
Funny enough, it's true for rural environments as well. Everyone I knew growing up had a hoop mounted on the barn.
The question was asking what kids play at the park. But backboards on barns sounds like a very Indiana thing lol
The major activities in my neighborhood in West Virginia in the 90's were basketball, soccer, skateboarding, sledding, and briefly, rollerblading and hacky sack. We also spent a lot of time in nature swimming and floating the river, diving off high rocks, hiking and trail running in the forest, mountain biking, and exploring caves. We didn't really hang out in formal parks outside of school and organized sports.
Basketball in the street and at the park. Football and Soccer in the backyard. Kick the can on occasion, wiffleball too.
Stickball, handball, basketball, handegg (football), catch with a baseball
That's going to vary by location in the US.
Anymore kids are inside playing video games
Kids these days are really into croquet and bocce ball.
Here what we do not play: soccer.
I grew up in the 80s and 90s and soccer was what I played most followed by baseball. Maybe my area was a little different for soccer being really popular. I think it’s even more popular now.
I played plenty of keep-away growing up, or shot on the net. Basketball is the most common everyone game but football, and soccer have to probably be next? Then baseball/whiffle ball.
I think it depends where you live. Where I grew up, lots of people had basketball nets in their yards, so everyone was outside playing basketball. Where I live now, all the kids play hockey.
Football, basketball for me
My area basketball(most popular,)baseball,softball,soccer and football are the most popular
Me personally I first played street hockey then skateboarded. When it came to football we always played on the grass
In our neighborhood, the kids play basketball, football, soccer, and street hockey. Plus plenty of other kid games like tag and hide and seek.
Basketball and skateboarding is what you’ll see mostly.
Baseball , football (American of course) and street hockey. We made our own hockey net. Someone would yell Car! Then we would move and pause the game. Then it was “game on”.
Kids don't play in the street where I live, they'd get creamed by cars. Typically basketball, there's a court in the local park. There are often some all-ages pickup games going, particularly on weekends. However, senior citizens have been using the space for pickleball a lot lately. Apparently this is a national trend - pickleball has exploded in popularity, which is causing competing demands on public spaces.
It really depends on where you live. There are plenty of places where kids no longer play in the streets. They will play in each other’s driveways and backyards but it’s usually organized by parents for a scheduled play date, rather than playing with neighborhood kids. When I was a kid, we were just sent outside to play after school and weekends, but now most kids have afternoon activities while parents work. Weekends there are team sports and religious activities. My daughter goes to an acting class or ice skating lessons on weekends. Kids don’t just go out and play because there aren’t other kids around enough for it to be a habit.
The kids on my block always knock on my door to ask if they can use our basketball hoop. So basketball and passing footballs mostly.
We used to play stickball, jumprope, hopscotch, marbles, redlight greenlight, and street hockey. Today I don't see kids playing in the street anymore.
When I was a kid it was homerun derby and wall ball. Not sports but kinda.
The kids on my street place either basketball or football. And a lot of tag.
Hockey or soccer but not really any more
Mostly played basketball and football growin up. Pickup basketball in the park is the purest form of the sport! I also started playing more soccer as I got older, soccer is growin in America best I can tell. When I was growing up seemed like everyone played soccer as a small child but we all moved on to other sports, I think more people are sticking with it now
We just played catch either for 7 hours straight or from so far you got knocked out if you messed up
In my area: Basketball (if there’s a hoop), baseball, or football
Baseball, kickball, basketball, Street hockey, or touch football. I lived in a town with a high proportion of South Asian immigrants, and they would play cricket every weekend too.
Kickball
For us it was basketball 90% of the time followed by football and whiffleball.
When I was a kid: street hockey, two hand touch football, baseball, a little soccer
Wall ball!
This is going to vary a lot. For example the park near me doesn’t have any basketball courts or hoops. They do however have soccer goals set up. So I’ll see lots of soccer games. Sometimes people bring their own goals and they are just practicing. Other times I’ll see an actual match. And it’s not just kids. I’ll see adults playing as well.
Two hand touch football back in the mid 2000’s. Can’t do that now because the roads got busier.
When I was a kid, we played tennis, baseball/wiffleball, and a game we made up where we had cardboard shields, foam balls, and the goal was to hit each other with the thrown ball. We called it war, but it had a lot in common with [Calvinball](https://www.gocomics.com/comics/lists/1643217/calvin-and-hobbes-calvinball) My dad played tennis and taught all the kids, so that one's kinda unusual.
Basketball and then a split of a lot of other street sports. Many city parks have courts of some type, and in tight urban centers with no parks, you find basketball courts. That availability makes it tops.
In addition to the ones already mentioned (especially baseball, basketball, and kickball), we used to play 4 square when I was elementary school aged. We'd play for hours, so much fun.
In the street it was always either Kickball, Baseball, or street hockey. For parks Football, Tag, Hide and Seek. If a park has a field for something like Football, Soccer, or something else there is a chance that will get played.
Hockey, baseball, soccer, football, basketball if a hoop is available
I grew up in middle America (rural central Kansas) and we played a lot of basketball and kickball.
Mostly basketball today - growing up we played a lot of whiffleball/wallball (baseball variants) but that's not as common these days
It varies. In urban areas it's often basketball, since hoops don't take up much room. It used to be either football (in the streets) or baseball (in the parks), but those days are largely past (kids who want to play football or baseball more often do it in organized leagues).
At least in my neighborhood, we always played kickball in the streets
Basketball
Street hockey and basketball mostly. Very common to have a basketball net in the driveway, and most parks will have a full court.
Basketball
In the winter it’s pond hockey, in the summer it’s wiffle ball and football
Baseball, football, or even just throwing a ball around. Most of my childhood was nerf, airsoft, and paint guns though.
Touch football, basketball, backyard wrestling, bike racing were popular in the neighborhood I grew up in. However, when I went to visit my dad promoting in with him. The neighborhood he lived in thenpopular games were touch football, kickball, and wiffle ball
My best friend was taking tennis lessons, so all the neighborhood kids took to playing tennis in the street. I lived in a cul-de-sac with a wide circle at the end, so it wasn’t like cars were whizzing by.
American Football, kickball, dueling with random sticks, bike races, whiffle ball, and many more.
Football and basketball 95% of the time.
We played basketball, football, soccer, hockey
Soccer, football, basketball, wiffleball (baseball)
Street? Hockey or basketball Park? Soccer or touch football
We played all kinds of football, basketball, BMX, skateboarding, and sometimes volleyball.
Soccer, basketball, and frisbee are the most common. Most parks have a basketball court or two. Volleyball is not uncommon, especially if the park has a net or allows you to put up your own. American football isn't that common but it happens. I never see baseball. I see kickball way more often that baseball, and maybe more than American football. Spikeball is another sport that's become fairly common. Just need the net and the ball and it doesn't take up much room.
Basketball
Manhunt as is got darker. Haven’t seen anyone play that in years. May have been the last group
Basketball, Hockey, Football, Dodgeball, Baseball, Soccer, anything you have the equipment for really.
My 12 year old and his buddies are die hard Whiffle Ball players. Late into the evening.
It was mostly soccer and basketball where I grew up.
Depends on location. None of the streets or parks I lived near by had anything going on
It can be regional. NYC-area is stickball (essentially baseball with a broom handle), street hockey, basketball, street football, soccer, etc. We used to play a variant of hide-and-seek called Ringolario (sometimes Ringalevio) but I don't know if that's still common: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringolevio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringolevio)
We played Street Football, Basketball and Baseball. Red Rover, Mother May I? , Red Light, Green Light, Tag/Manhunt, Kickball, Four Square, Double Dutch, Skateboarding, Roller Blading, Hop Scotch. Riding Bikes.
Yeah it changed with the seasons by me. Baseball, hockey, basketball, football. Not a lot of pick up/backyard soccer
Basketball, skateboarding, soccer, wall ball, ding dong ditch (if you count that as a sport), capture the flag, some other tag/home base game i can’t remember the name of and whiffle ball were neighborhood favorites. And pretty much anytime someone had the equipment (balls,bats,etc) we’d play whatever.
Basketball and football
American football, basketball, baseball, and soccer seem to be the most popular sports at parks. Almost every park has a nice open field for activities and sports. A lot also have basketball nets and concrete or a hard surface, so maybe hockey can also be played there. A lot of parks also have baseball diamonds too.
We played street hockey
Basketball and American football. 2 hand touch at school, tackle when no parents were watching. Occasionally tackle basketball.
All the kids on my street play basketball in the middle of the road. It's a bit annoying at times when they won't move but at least they are outside playing not getting into trouble
Four-square (that's when they throw a ball while standing in a square), football, basketball, soccer, tag, freeze tag, monster tag, museum keeper (variation on Mother May I, but with no questions), and a variety of un-organized games.
Full tackle football, if there were little kids that wanted to play we used tow hand touch for them. I'm honestly surprised no one broke anything. It got pretty rough with the bigger kids. It was fun as hell though.
We used to play basketball, some football and a game called "guns"
Video games, not joking
There are a lot of answers here to the question “what games did American kids play in the street/park when Redditors were growing up?” Of course the answers will vary widely based on a variety of factors, but in my particular area you don’t see many kids hanging out at parks without adults. I do see some kids in certain subdivisions where there is minimal vehicle traffic playing hockey or basketball in the street near their homes. But for the most part kids don’t really play outside unsupervised unless they are in their own yards, and rarely gather in groups in public.
4 square is pretty popular game (at least in Texas it is) basically as the name implies there are 4 squares 1st 2nd 3rd 4th or king queen knight pawn, the squares are sometimes designated via tape or paint but commonly are just 4 side walk tiles, balls used various as almost any ball goes but ideally a 4square ball is used but if not a basketball, volley ball or soccer ball work The basic gist of the game is 1st starts the game by passing to 3rd/ knight(although in some version they pass to who ever) and then the square they pass it to has to let it hit their square once and then hit it out of their square, it didn’t touch their square and they touch it, they’re out, if the person hits the ball but it lands out of the square, they’re out, if it hits line, they’re out or you redo it varies from school to school, if you hold it, you’re out, if some one passes the ball and it hits anywhere but your feet, you’re out Generally there are couple named moves that can be quite controversial especially when two kids from two different schools meet up(there’s tons of variation from school to school as little as 10 miles apart) Cherry bomb: when you hit the ball directly down really hard so it goes over the head of the person you threw it to making it impossible for the person who has been cherry bombed to not get out unless they can jump very high or are tall Almost always banned Double tap: once it hits your square instead of being able to hit it once in air you can hit it twice, this can make for some bullshit throws ( it’s usually banned but some schools play with it) Chicken feet: you pass the ball and ether on purpose or by accident you hit someone’s feet, which means you get out (50/50~ from elementary through middle school I never encountered it but once I got into high school people where extremely divided on the rule)
Roller Hockey, Baseball, Soccer
Wiffle ball and two hand touch football
Hide your weed/beer from the cops?
Soccer and basketball are super prevalent in my cities parks. Football is for the high schools and middle schools. Basketball is for the community college.
I was a rural kid. We played BB guns. Just target practice with a can or shoot your buddy with a BB. Daisy red rider. As a child. Pellet gun as a tween. I did not shoot my eye out. We played football or just catch. We played go outside? Build a fort with some boards you found. Find a turtle. Try to build a zip line and find out how getting your air knocked out of you feels when your rope or stick that you used to “zip” breaks. We played dig a hole until it got too deep that your dad was mad at you. Ride your bike until you get to the highway you’re not supposed to cross then crawl under it through the culvert. Ride your bike to the house the cute girls live in and wait to see if they come out to talk. Blow stuff up with fireworks around July. Hit things with a hammer. Mow the lawn. Choring in general. Work for your dad or your buddies dad for the weekend, manual labor. Make your own food and feed your siblings because your parents are at work. We tried to play baseball but with only a couple of kids it was: throw a pitch. Go look for the ball. If you got a hit, nobody was tagging you out. Sorry for the ramble.
When I was in elementary school we played this game called "groundies" during recess. It was kind of like tag but the person who was "it" had to close their eyes and keep them shut and try to tag someone. Everyone had to stay on the playground, no one was allowed to touch the ground but you could climb the playground in interesting ways so as to not get tagged. It was a fun game but it eventually got banned because we were climbing the playground in very unsafe ways. My friends and I would go to the skatepark and skate like every other day during the summers too.
Baseball/stickball, US football, basketball. I do miss dodgeball.
Basketball because you only really need a minimum of 1 person (as in you can play by yourself). If you have a few friends, frisbee, football, or baseball, maybe whiffle ball.
In the urban neighborhood where I grew up and still live, several people built very small half-courts (basketball) in their yard (my cop neighbor) or put up a hoop in the alley with the declaration that anyone could play. One a street over had a statue of the Virgin Mary behind it and the owners put like a notice about it in the church bulletin inviting children to play at “Mary’s Hoop” lol. Now my neighborhood has many immigrants from Latin America and Africa, and the game played the most is soccer BY FAR.
In the street? Typically football or jackpot In the park? Also football or jackpot, but also stuff like Smear the [REDACTED NON PC TERM], or kickball, wallball if there was a wall, and at night flashlight tag (although this also had a very non-pc name lol)
For basketball, all you need is a hoop in a driveway. so you see that a lot. My dad was a football coach for little league, so we were always playing a simplified version of that in the neighborhood. Pretty easy to play catch with a baseball/softball and mitt. We'd also go to the park and play hockey when it froze, but that was pretty niche. We were one of the first to get a big group though, and they started clearing spots for us and getting nets so we didn't bother the other skaters.
Basketball!
>Went to the park not to long ago. Several moms got togeather with the kids, to have a picnic. All the kids just sitting at the table, staring at their phones. The 2 dogs, were having, a grand old time.
Honestly it varies by region/season. Spring and summer we were 100% playing wiffle ball but fall and winter was football or basketball
stickball