thumb
A
Spalding Hi-Bounce Ball, often called a
Spaldeen, is a small
pinkPink is a pale red color; the use of the word for the color was first recorded in the late 17th century, describing the flowers of pinks, flowering plants in the genus Dianthus. Pink itself is a combination of red and white...
rubber ball, somewhat similar to a
racquetballFor other sports often called "paddleball", see Paddleball .Racquetball is a racquet sport played with a hollow rubber ball in an indoor or outdoor court. Joe Sobek is credited with inventing racquetball in 1950, adding a stringed racquet to the game to increase velocity and control...
, supposedly made from the defective core of a
tennisTennis is a sport played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a strung racquet to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court....
ball without the felt. It was the more expensive and more popular version of the Pensie Pinkie (made by the
Penn-Places:England*Penn, Buckinghamshire*Penn, West MidlandsUnited States*Penn, North Dakota*Pennsylvania**Penn, Pennsylvania*Penn Lake Park, Pennsylvania*Penn Township, several municipalities-Education:...
tennis ball company). These balls are commonly used in
street gameA street game is a sport or game that is played on city streets rather than a prepared field. Street games are usually simply play time activities of children in the most convenient venue...
s developed in the mid-20th century, such as
Chinese handballChinese handball , is a form of American handball popular on the streets of New York City and Bridgewater, NJ during the 1960s and '70s, and is still played today, mostly in New York City and San Diego. Different variations are played around the world...
(a variation on
American handballAmerican handball, usually referred to simply as handball, is a sport in which players hit a small rubber ball against one or more walls using their hands.- History :...
),
stoop ballStoop ball is a game that is played by throwing a ball against a stoop on the pavement in front of a building. Historically, it has been popular in Brooklyn and other inner cities. It first became popular after World War I.It has been played and enjoyed by a number of prominent personalities...
, hit-the-penny (involving trying to make a penny flip on a sidewalk), box ball,
punchballPunchball is a sport similar to baseball but without a pitcher, catcher, or bat. It is a pastime of football announcer Al Michaels, who often played with former Chicago Bears quarterback Sid Luckman....
, and
stickballStickball is a street game related to baseball, usually formed as a pick-up game, in large cities in the Northeastern United States . The equipment consists of a broom handle and a rubber ball, typically a spaldeen, pensie pinkie, high bouncer or tennis ball. The rules come from baseball and are...
(a variation of
baseballBaseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The goal is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond...
).
The term most likely arose from a
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
-accented pronunciation of
SpaldingSpalding is a sporting goods company founded by Albert Spalding in Chicago in 1876 and now headquartered in Springfield, Massachusetts. The company specialises in the production of balls for many sports, being perhaps most well known for its basketballs, but it also makes a range of products for...
, the sporting goods company that produced the balls.
thumb
A
Spalding Hi-Bounce Ball, often called a
Spaldeen, is a small
pinkPink is a pale red color; the use of the word for the color was first recorded in the late 17th century, describing the flowers of pinks, flowering plants in the genus Dianthus. Pink itself is a combination of red and white...
rubber ball, somewhat similar to a
racquetballFor other sports often called "paddleball", see Paddleball .Racquetball is a racquet sport played with a hollow rubber ball in an indoor or outdoor court. Joe Sobek is credited with inventing racquetball in 1950, adding a stringed racquet to the game to increase velocity and control...
, supposedly made from the defective core of a
tennisTennis is a sport played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a strung racquet to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court....
ball without the felt. It was the more expensive and more popular version of the Pensie Pinkie (made by the
Penn-Places:England*Penn, Buckinghamshire*Penn, West MidlandsUnited States*Penn, North Dakota*Pennsylvania**Penn, Pennsylvania*Penn Lake Park, Pennsylvania*Penn Township, several municipalities-Education:...
tennis ball company). These balls are commonly used in
street gameA street game is a sport or game that is played on city streets rather than a prepared field. Street games are usually simply play time activities of children in the most convenient venue...
s developed in the mid-20th century, such as
Chinese handballChinese handball , is a form of American handball popular on the streets of New York City and Bridgewater, NJ during the 1960s and '70s, and is still played today, mostly in New York City and San Diego. Different variations are played around the world...
(a variation on
American handballAmerican handball, usually referred to simply as handball, is a sport in which players hit a small rubber ball against one or more walls using their hands.- History :...
),
stoop ballStoop ball is a game that is played by throwing a ball against a stoop on the pavement in front of a building. Historically, it has been popular in Brooklyn and other inner cities. It first became popular after World War I.It has been played and enjoyed by a number of prominent personalities...
, hit-the-penny (involving trying to make a penny flip on a sidewalk), box ball,
punchballPunchball is a sport similar to baseball but without a pitcher, catcher, or bat. It is a pastime of football announcer Al Michaels, who often played with former Chicago Bears quarterback Sid Luckman....
, and
stickballStickball is a street game related to baseball, usually formed as a pick-up game, in large cities in the Northeastern United States . The equipment consists of a broom handle and a rubber ball, typically a spaldeen, pensie pinkie, high bouncer or tennis ball. The rules come from baseball and are...
(a variation of
baseballBaseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The goal is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond...
).
Name
The term most likely arose from a
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
-accented pronunciation of
SpaldingSpalding is a sporting goods company founded by Albert Spalding in Chicago in 1876 and now headquartered in Springfield, Massachusetts. The company specialises in the production of balls for many sports, being perhaps most well known for its basketballs, but it also makes a range of products for...
, the sporting goods company that produced the balls. Across the
Hudson RiverThe Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. It rises at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains, flows past Albany, and finally forms the border between New York City and New Jersey at its mouth before emptying into...
in Jersey City,
New JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered on the north by New York, and to the east by the Hudson River, Upper New York Bay, the Kill Van Kull, Newark Bay, the Arthur Kill, Raritan Bay, Sandy Hook Bay, Westchester County, New York City, Long Island, and...
, the ball was referred to as a "high bouncer." It may also have originated with a mis-reading of A. G. Spalding's signature on the ball. The name has become so common that Spalding now uses it in marketing, and it is now a registered trademark.
History and attraction
Spaldeens were available from 1949 to 1979 to city kids. In
urban areaAn urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets.Urban areas are created and further...
s sparse in grass, Spaldeens became integral to many street games due to their bounciness and light weight. Citing the declining popularity of stickball, Spalding took the ball off the market in 1979, but it returned in 1999 to much fanfare.
Jonathan LethemJonathan Allen Lethem is an American writer. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Lethem trained to be an artist before moving to California and devoting his time to writing. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was...
's 2003 book
The Fortress of SolitudeThe Fortress of Solitude is a 2003 semi-autobiographical novel by Jonathan Lethem set in Brooklyn and spanning the 1970s, '80s, and '90s. It follows two teenage friends, Dylan Ebdus and Mingus Rude, one white and one black, who discover a magic ring that turns them into superheroes...
contains many references to the
stoop ballStoop ball is a game that is played by throwing a ball against a stoop on the pavement in front of a building. Historically, it has been popular in Brooklyn and other inner cities. It first became popular after World War I.It has been played and enjoyed by a number of prominent personalities...
game using a Spaldeen on the streets of 1970s
BrooklynBrooklyn is one of the five boroughs of New York City, located southwest of Queens on the western tip of Long Island. An independent city until its consolidation with New York in 1898, Brooklyn is New York City's most populous borough, with 2.5 million residents, and second largest in area...
.
Colors
Since its return in 1999 Spaldeens have been manufactured in a variety of other colors other than
pinkPink is a pale red color; the use of the word for the color was first recorded in the late 17th century, describing the flowers of pinks, flowering plants in the genus Dianthus. Pink itself is a combination of red and white...
. Some of them are
blackBlack is the color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum; they absorb all such frequencies of light...
,
blueBlue is a colour, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 440–490 nm. It is considered one of the additive primary colours. On the HSV Colour Wheel, the complement of blue is yellow; that is, a colour corresponding to an equal...
,
greenGreen is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 520–570 nanometres. In the subtractive color system, it is not a primary color, but is created out of a mixture of yellow and blue, or yellow and cyan; it is considered...
, orange,
purplePurple is a general term used in English for the range of shades of color occurring between red and blue. In additive light combinations it occurs by mixing the primary colors red and blue in varying proportions...
,
redRed is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths of light discernible by the human eye, in the wavelength range of roughly 630–740 nm. Longer wavelengths than this are called infrared , and cannot be seen by the naked human eye...
, and
yellowYellow is the color evoked by light that stimulates both the L and M cone cells of the retina about equally, with no significant stimulation of the S cone cells. Light with a wavelength of 570–580 nm is yellow, as is light with a suitable mixture of somewhat longer and shorter wavelengths...
.
External links