Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Is "Scrub" Baseball Still Played ?

Being raised waaay out in the country , "scrub" was all we played .As many kids as could gathered up at one house by riding bikes , walking , or catching a ride .

Two or three would start off as batters with the rest playing in the field.When a batter made an out , he went to left field and everybody rotated around , with the catcher becoming a new batter , pitcher moving to catcher ,etc.

Most times there weren't enough to fill out all the field positions so some were left vacant and sometimes there was only one batter so players rotated with each at bat .Occasionally , with two base runners , the outfield got pretty skimpy .

When I was five years old , my older brother and his friends - ranging in age from about twelve to eighteen - were playing scrub at our place .In order to keep me out of the way , and since there was no third basemen - that being one of the positions most often left vacant - I was assigned as third base .

Not playing third base , mind you ,; BEING third base .Usually rocks were used to mark the bases but in this case , I replaced the rock . Unlike a rock , however , I insisted on wearing my toy glove .

That proved to be a BIG mistake .

Somebody made it to second base and the next batter hit a grounder to the shortstop , who happened to be Bobby Herndon , a sixteen year old .With visions of a double play , and forgetting that I was not PLAYING third base , but BEING third base , he rifled a throw to me .

I still remember how that baseball just kept getting BIGGER until it hit me square between the eyes !

Once they determined I wasn't dead [ I found out later that had I been dead the plan was to carry me up to the stock tank and throw my little body in and pass it off as an accidental drowning ] they carried me to the windmill and ran water over me 'til I came to .

Did any of y'all play scrub?

Reaching wayyyyyy back this morning ain't you.
Now days kids play ball with all the adult seriousness that the grownups can put on them. Uniforms and rules and regulations and all that.
Got a grand kid just starting T ball what ever in hell that is.

Yeah, buddy we played scrub all the time. Haven't seen kids playing a game in decades. Our uniform was bare feet, rolled up overalls and a T shirt.

Gloves were shared as not every kid had one.

Wrapped the ball in friction tape when it started to come apart at the seams. Boy would that take your arm off when it hit your glove. Cut down on home runs though. Ball was dead as a rock.

BCR

We always played cow pasture baseball. The bases were collected from around the pasture. They had to be dry enough to carry to the diamond so they weren't too bad for bases. Sometimes in more densely populated pastures there were 'discussions' about which article was the base and which was an artifact.

In So. Cal we played over the line, much the same. In San Diego there is the largest tournament in July, been going on for over 50 years. Even if you don't play in the tournament, it is well worth watching!

OMBAC

We played "Indian Baseball". I don't know the origin of the name, but it was pretty universal game when I was a kid. Different neighborhoods might have a few tweaks on the basic rules.

The game could be played with three kids per team. In the field there was a pitcher, infielder, and outfielder. The team batting supplied the catcher. The count started at 2-2, the pitcher doubled as the first baseman and first base ('pitcher's hand'). A throw to the pitcher that beat a runner crossing first base was an out.

For a right-handed batter any hit to right field was an out - flip that for lefties. If the team batting ran out of base runners 'ghost runners' were used.

As a Phys.Ed major (who's taught academics the last 10 years) - I still cover the occasional Phys.Ed class.

When I was a kid,many evenings per week were spent on the field or court playing a game of pick-up soccer, basketball, baseball or football. We all knew the rules - and we refereed each other.

The last few times I covered Phys.Ed classes, I was slack-jawed in amazement at how little basic baseball and football the typical students knew during the first few periods introducing a new sport.

In baseball, kids slid into first, threw to the wrong bases, ran at the wrong time. In football, most had no idea what "1st and 7" or "3rd and 3 to go" meant, followed one forward pass with another, didn't know what a huddle was - had never heard of "steam-boats" etc.

This new video generation, by and large, is clueless about the sports we all took for granted.

Around here - "pick-up games" have been replaced by video games and TV screens and indoor play.

It's a sad thing, at least to this observer.

Brings back lots of memories. My buds and I kept an empty double-lot mowed and somewhat groomed for the pick-up games. Typically used our t-shirts as the bases. Never had enough guys for two full teams, so always improvised one way or the other.

I cannot recall the last time I've seen two kids just playing catch. Sadly, none of them will ever experience the sweet smell of playing in a freshly-mowed field of clover.

This brings back sweet memories. My buds and I used to keep a field mowed for the games. Typically used our t-shirts as the bases. Never could field enough for two teams, so always improvised.

I cannot recall the last time I saw a couple of kids playing catch. Sadly, they will never enjoy the sweet aroma of playing ball in a freshly mowed field of clover.

In my day there wasn't much scrub baseball so much as hours and hours of whiffel ball. You can find some real creative spots to play whiffle ball that provide different home run fences, heights and distances. Half the fun was finding these amphitheaters and such.

yup. whiffle ball was my generation's scrub baseball. ghost runners and throw the ball and hit the runner and he is out. 6 balls to walk, rotate who hits, mercy rule on how many runs you can score before you have to play defense again.

dad built us a backstop in the backyard and my brother and i spent hours and hours every day playing baseball. we even flipped on the basketball spotlight one winter to play baseball with snowballs because it had been a long winter.

we had enough kids in the neighborhood to get two baseball or football teams together and the school was across the st so we used their fields to play

When I was a kid in elementary school we played improvised baseball at every recess and lunch hour unless it was raining too hard to see the mound. It was such a natural part of life I was shocked when I found out that my kids no longer did it.

Ya' gotta spray paint 'em, Rock Chuck. Preferably orange, yellow, or last choice as white. Makes 'em easier to shoot after the game.

Biggest problem here, is those cows can can get a bit over productive around the good flat dry ones. Kind of tends to obscure the diamond effect some.

We did manage to get up two really good scrub games this Summer. Neighbor kids got so much going on, hard for all of them to get together anymore at same time. We did recruit 3 more this year, two boys and one girl. Good neighborhood times!

Same game under a different name.

No. I've not seen kids put together a game on their own for decades. Still see a little street basketball, but nothing on the fields.