TTANCM.COM » Suicide (the game)

When I was a kid we used to play a game called suicide which was a mishmash of the two games explained in these two wiki articles…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_(game)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Ball

Basically the game was a whole bunch of kid gather in an area with at least 1 more or less flat wall, areas with 3 walls like those found in a lot of Philadelphia school yards were better, and they throw a ball (either a tennis ball, a hollow blue rubber handball, or worst of all a solid pink rubber I-don’t-know-what-these-were-actually-intended-for-but-they-hurt-like-hell ball, the ones that had a sort of “mangled pencil eraser” kind of texture). When the ball rebounds from the wall, if it is caught by someone else “in the air”, or without bouncing on the floor ground at all, then the person who originally threw the ball has to run to the main wall, tag it and scream “Suicide!” or “Sui!” as we used to call it in Philly. In the time up until that person touches the wall everyone is able to throw the ball at him, as hard as they want, but the general rule was no head or crotch shots (this varied with the company you kept though).

Other players would have to run if they touched the ball in anyway, without actually catching it (like a boggled catch, or the ball rolled across their foot, etc.) and the ball touched the ground before or after touching them.

There were a lot of variations on this game which included a version using multiple balls (which guaranteed people were constantly running for the wall because there is no way to keep track of all the balls at once) and “Homicide”, which was the same game except that in addition to throwing the ball at people running for the wall you were also allowed to punch them (again this was usually just in the back, arms and shoulders, and I can’t recall anybody actually allowing faces shots, although I do know a couple of people who used to go for the crotch), and versions using larger balls (basketballs, etc.).

I stumbled across those Wiki articles above and I wondered if this game is still played in public schools, or even in the neighborhood. We used to play during recess and lunch all through Elementary and Jr. High, and we used to play on walls on our street where ever there were houses that the owner didn’t come out and chase us away (or were too slow to catch us/didn’t know where we lived/who our parents didn’t like enough to punish us if they did complain) and of course where there wasn’t a car parked in front of the wall. Living on a block of rowhouses meant that our playing were often abruptly moved a dozen feet or a few blocks by cars parking and irate neighbors. With people screaming about how swing sets and see saws are dangerous anymore I wonder does this game still exist?

Wall ball for us was just baseball, but since we couldn’t use bats and baseballs (rowhouses=many many breakable windows) we would throw the ball against a wall (or step in stepball) and set areas for singles, doubles triples and homeruns based on how far away from the wall (step) the ball traveled back over our heads.