The stickball bat was a broomstick. You unscrewed the broom from the stick and the stick became a bat and the bat cost nothing because your mother already bought the broom. The ball was a Spaldeen. Pink rubber. Twenty-five cents. The field was the street. First base was the parked Buick. Second base was the sewer cover. The foul line was the curb. Nobody owned the field because the city owned the street and the city did not charge admission.

You hit the ball and it went two sewers and that was a home run. Distance was measured in sewers. The sewer was the unit of power. A kid who could hit three sewers was a legend. The legend lived on the block and you saw him every day and he was twelve years old and his name was probably Carmine.

The game stopped when a car came. Everybody moved to the curb. The car passed. Everybody moved back. The game resumed. The car was a timeout that nobody called. The street belonged to the game and the car was a guest and the guest did not always know it was a guest. Sometimes the ball hit the car and the driver yelled and nobody claimed the ball and nobody claimed the bat because the bat was a broomstick and a broomstick is not evidence.

I played stickball on every block between Avenue A and Avenue D. The rules changed every block. One block played with a pitcher. Another block played with a bounce. The block was the league and the league made its own rules. Nobody wrote them down. You learned the rules by getting yelled at. The broomstick is still in the hardware store. The Spaldeen is still in the candy store. The street is full of cars that do not move for games. The field is parked on.

See also: Fire Hydrant Wrench, Cobblestone