Warwick seniors revive stickball
WARWICK — Every borough of New York City has its own rules for stickball. In Warwick Grove, they have a few of their own. Nobody runs bases, everyone avoids injuries, and no one is too old to feel like a kid for an afternoon.
Take Gene Maloney. He was the league's MVP the first year out. He's 83.
Warwick Grove is a 55-and-up community, where Ron Genovese, 69, moved almost four years ago. As the neighborhood grew, he got to thinking. Then he got to talking with his friend Ted Kastanis, 71.
"He came from Brooklyn. I came from Manhattan," Genovese said. "I says, 'How did you play?' He says, 'How did you play?' Then I went and bought three stickball bats."
Genovese never would have bought a stickball bat as a kid. He would have stolen one or nabbed an old broomstick and sliced it down to size.
Read all of Meghan Murphy's story in the Times Herald-Record.
He's a poser!
Everyone knows, you hold the bat at the wooden end and hit with the taped end!
Posted by: actor212 | Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 11:31 AM
I don't get it. If you're going to buy something, why not go all the way and buy a real bat? Or do they only sell those tinny, aluminium bats these days?
Posted by: Ken Muldrew | Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 11:47 AM
Pssst, Ken. I think you're Canadandianness is showing.
Posted by: Lance | Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 11:51 AM
Lance wrote, "Pssst, Ken. I think you're Canadandianness is showing."
Well the whole thing is just crazy! Anyone can just walk down to the local hockey rink and find dozens of broken hockey sticks that make perfectly good stickbats. Isn't that so?
Posted by: Ken Muldrew | Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 03:03 PM
Ken, the point behind base (and stick) ball is round bat, round ball, and contacting them squarely.
Sort of takes the fun out of it if one is flat.
Posted by: actor212 | Friday, May 29, 2009 at 12:23 PM
Hmmm...I've heard cricket players say the same thing about using a glove to catch a ball (the business side of their bats is pretty flat, though, so what do they know?).
Still, we have a beautiful weekend in the offing and the leaves are finally starting to open up and make this place green again. Flat or round, so long as one is outside swinging a stick at some tossed object, all is well with the world.
Posted by: Ken Muldrew | Friday, May 29, 2009 at 05:45 PM