games/sports you invented as kids

There were two I can remember. One was the game my mother referred to as 'Curtain-rod basketball'. We'd take a piece of standard notebook paper, wad it into a tight ball, and wrap a couple of bandaids around it (scotch tape would work in a pinch, but the ball didn't seem to bounce as well.) We had a one of those huge sliding glass doors in our living room, and the goal was to get the ball to fall between the wall and the curtain rod (hence the name). You could double dribble all you like, but you did have to dribble. My brother and I could only play it on the rare occasions when our mom would leave us alone for awhile, but she could usually tell when we were playing it, since the curtain rod would be dipping in the middle from monstrous Daryl Dawkins-type dunks.

The other was a form of whiffleball some older kids in the neighborhood invented in high school. You take a whiffle-golf ball and wrap it completely in electrical tape. The ball will do strange things if you know what you're doing, and you play with one of the really skinny yellow whiffle ball bats. Lots of strikeouts, and plenty of challenging defense, since the ball will zing pretty good if you can manage to hit it solid with one of those skinny yellow bats.

 

Great thread!

I invented countless games with friends and my brother. Garage hockey (with golf clubs and a tennis ball), Fookababall (a delightful blend of football, soccer, and baseball), and Tackle Hoops (with one of those Nerf basketballs attached to a bedroom door, usually with a bed nearby on which to tackle), to name a few.

The all-time winner, though, was Roof 500. Remember 500, where a bunch of kids got at one end of the yard, and one guy at the other, and the one guy threw the ball high into the sky for the other kids to catch? Mortal combat usually preceded the actual catching part, and if you were the first to catch 5 balls in the air, you then got to throw the ball? My friend and I would play it with just the two of us. We'd throw the ball on his roof, jockey for position while it rolled down the roof, and hopefully catch it before the other. It was exceedingly violent. And fun. The stupid thing is, I don't think there was any way to win. We just did it over and over and over, until we were too tired or bruised to continue, IIRC. We, like, didn't have a lot of, like, other friends. The roof was friend enough, man.

 

In my 1st hour period in senior year in high school we never did anything, and since we were next door the shop, which wasn't used during our hour, we played baseball. We made a ball of paper and masking tape and used a paddle and you had to hit a homerun or you were out. Bleh bleh bleh some other rules, it was fun.

We used to have a game on my friend's trampoline where two people were on the trampoline jumping up and down and everyone else on the ground got to throw pretty much whatever they wanted at you as hard as they could. If they hit you, they got to get up there. Kind of makes you wonder why they'd actually want to hit you, huh?

 

Some friends and I invented a game that we liked to call hall ball. If the hall had a wall closing it off at one end, we would take a mattress to close off the opened end. The game was either played in teams of two or one on one. The teams would line up on opposite sides of the hall. In the middle of the hall we'd place a tennis ball on the floor. One member from each team would go to the furthest end of the hall and on the count of 3 they would race to the ball. Whichever team won the ball would receive posession first. Once the ball was in play the object was to hit the opponents end of the hall without going past the midway stripe. At least one person was guaranteed to get hit in the nuts by a screaming fastball per game. First to score ten goals wins.

 

We had two in elementary school.

One we referred to as "rugby football", which was actually just touch football played with a tennis ball. But our key variation was that there were no incompletions unless the ball bounced out of bounds (I think that's why we threw the "rugby" in there). So a lot of times if you had a fast guy on your team you'd just chunk the ball as far as you could and let him out run the defense.

The other game we played wasn't really a made up game. We'd crush a can and play soccer with it on the basketball court. You had to kick it between the lane lines on the baseline to score. Makes me feel like a poor Brazilian child, now that I look back on it!

 

My dad had (still does) an apartment building and in the back of it it has a three car garage. It is actually a seperate building with an apartment above it and three seperate but connected garages.

OK, so we would play raquet ball - soccer.

This is where you kick the ball against the garage and the other guy gets the "rebound" and kicks it against the garages...one touch, You couldn't stop the ball or atrtempt to control it too much, just fire back.

Once we put up the basketball hoop, the garage doors were history. We would jump to dunk, regulation 10 foot high, using the garage doors to climb high enough to dunk. Fun stuff.

This was a cool place to play as we were away from the street, enclosed by the garages, another building and the main apartment building and a restaurant. Above the restaurant was a patio, deck area where we would try to kick ball to the top of it from the black top, two stories below, or try to shoot on the hoop from two stories up.

We would also throw the ball on top of the roof and wait for it to roll down, not knowing exactly where it would fall.

We video taped many "sporting events" and would play them back that night for the customers at the restaaurant! I may have been one of the few kids with a full time job, but what matters is to make lemonade when life gives you lemons.

The hardest part was to avoid parked cars. We would have them moved to the extreme ends or whatever, but we always looked around as folks cars got hit by balls. There were a few days when there were no cars parked back there.

This is a game we still play when we go back to my wife's home in Peru. She has 5 brothers and various friends come over. Something about Peruvians that we enjoy killing our own homes, but of well.

We use chalk or a rock to make a goal on the brick wall on the side of the house. One guy shoots on goal or just kicks it into the group of guys. If he scores on you, no hands, you are out of play. If you head his ball, you get to kick.

Sorry to go on so long, but you guys brought back some good times.

Not really a sport, but on rainy days would anyone play Star Wars?

That was when we drew up a war plan of X wing and H (bad guys) fighters. We made a Death star and everything. You moved by putting the pencil lead point on the fighter and slide it from the top of the pencil. The slash mark would either move your fighter to the end of the mark, an inch or so. If your slash crossed a enemy fighter, you blew it up. An so on until you entered the star and blew up the reactor.

 

The one from school was "one up" or "last one up" or something.

This was usually played before school started. All the kids would line up on one end while one kid in front of us. The field was like a football design where each end zone was a base/safe zone. The object was to run from base to the other end/base. You then ran back to the other end/base. Up and down you go.

If the guy tagged you, you had to help tag other kids. You did this until there was one kid left who had not been tagged. That kid called all in or last one up or something. He would win, but would have to start the next game by being the first tagger.

This really helped improve your running and avoiding skills. There were always a few kids who were really fast or hard to tag, two hands.

 

The ones I remember were couch football, where you lined up two couches facing each other and tacked the other guy into his couch as hard as you possibly could, sorta like sumo wrestling in a way (just thought of that), the best plays where when the couch went flying. Missing the couch was out of bounds. Me and my buddies had tournaments. Mom hated it.

Anohter was caterpillar racing. Yep. I did that.

 

Smear the Queer is the greatest game ever invented. Not sure who gets the creidt but all other games pale alongside this one.

Stoop ball and knee football were also fun. We also used to play goal line stand across beds. Two defenders on one side of the bed and a ball carrier on the other. Ball carrier tries to dive over the defense. Great fun!!!

 

We would play knee soccer quite a bit. We had a sectional sofa in our basement and the long end (from top of the cushion to the floor) was the goal. We used mini-balls that we would buy at Wichita Wings games as the ball. Everyone would take turns either shooting or playing goalie. All you had to do was smack the ball with your hand. The problem occured when the ball was bouncing and mishits would occur. The venetian blinds in the basement took a real beating, but it was fun.

We also used the mini-ball for another game that had one objective. The objective was to drill one of the other guys in the nuts with the ball. You could be doing anything, but a mini-ball in the room meant the game could start at any time.

We also played an alternate version of whiffleball. The ball was made up of rolled-up newspaper and duct tape. We cut the end off of regular whiffleball bats and filled them with anything (golf balls, sand, copper piping, etc.) that added weight. The bats were then wrapped in layers of duct tape and the game was on.

If I think of any more, I'll post them later.

 

I always loved Smear the Queer (though I might have had problems with its lack of objectivy) but its so politically incorrect that I have trouble even pronouncing the name now. Is it still called that on the playgrounds of America? If so, can we come up with a less offensive name?
I also remember playing 'knee football', but I think I outgrew it before the rest of you.

 

I believe it was changed to 'kill the carrier' and I'm sure it is now relegated to the memories of our youth....I believe kids today just have to sit on benches at recess......can't imagine they are allowed to do much of anything.....

We came up with a variation of roofball about a year ago.....they we were all 30 somethings with our children and the 'dads' decided to start throwing a ball onto the roof and trying to catch it......a wrinkle to the old rules though, you had to catch with your non throwing hand and just to make sure there was no cheating, your throwing hand had to have a beer in it......yep, our wives were proud that day....

 

I like that version Todd!!!

I can't even think how many tennis balls were in the gutter of my parent's house over the years.

 

My brother and I played stair soccer. Using a nerf soccer ball, you tried to kick the ball past the keeper into the stairwell. This usually meant kicking it as hard as possible towards the face or the naughty bits.