What was your favorite sports game/toy growing up?

[RchW]

I played a lot of Burby growing up. A school a wall, draw a strikezone and use tennis balls and you have baseball for 2 and 3.

https://localwiki.org/toronto/Burby
Toronto Burby League Home Page

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by RchW

I played a lot of Burby growing up. A school a wall, draw a strikezone and use tennis balls and you have baseball for 2 and 3.

https://localwiki.org/toronto/Burby
Toronto Burby League Home Page

Isn't it great how all these things develop names over the years? When we got old enough to ride bikes to other neighborhoods, we were introduced to Wiffleten. Baseball using wiffle bats (ends cut open, stuffed full of rags and newspaper and resealed with electric tape) and a tennis ball. This was fast pitch with a catcher.

[Leo_The_Lip]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Did any of you ever have the basketball game, I want to say it was call Basket that had the two cardboard pieces with bakets attached that you put at each end, the floor was made so the ball would roll into little holes and you flicked a metal lever to shoot the ball? It's hard to even describe some of these games. I can't imagine the look on a kids face today if you tried to give them such a game.

I do remember this one. I had a friend with this game. Not all that popular with us. We preferred shooting baskets out back.

The hockey game is from the early 1960's, perhaps Christmas of 1962 for me. Hard to narrow down a memory from over 50 years ago.

[canadiancreed]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Wow, I've never seen that version. Ours had grooves that allowed you to move the players up and down the ice. We didn't have the things yours did to keep the puck from going behind the net either. Thanks for posting that picture.

No worries. I dont think this one was sold outside of Canada. In fact until I searched I had never seen another one, which makes sense, as it's about what seventy years old now?

[Airdrop01]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Loved Wiffle Ball. Did y'all run the bases? We used to play what we called "Marking Baseball." Hits were designated spots on the field. If a groundball was stopped before passing a certain point it was an out. Anything caught in the air was an out. We used a lawn chair against the garage door for a strikezone.

My nephew (10 years younger) carried on the tradition. In fact, he built a field in my moms back yard that's still there.

We sometimes ran bases depending on how many kids but mostly we did like what you did. My dad used to tell us it was called Indian ball the way we did it. We used the lawnchair too!!!

[CD1083]

I used to play Baseball Stars all the time. Edit the players names to my friends and people in school. It was my first baseball sim.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Did any of you ever have the basketball game, I want to say it was call Basket that had the two cardboard pieces with bakets attached that you put at each end, the floor was made so the ball would roll into little holes and you flicked a metal lever to shoot the ball? It's hard to even describe some of these games. I can't imagine the look on a kids face today if you tried to give them such a game.

I had it. It was called BAS-KET, marketed by Cadeco. It used an orange ping-pong ball. I was deadly from the arc.

[RchW]

Christmas 1967 I got the more traditional table top hockey game with slots and replaceable metal players. The puck could go around the net and the wingers had little deflectors on the boards to direct the puck to the net. The kicker was, all credit to my Mum, she got me all 12 teams in uniform for the recently expanded NHL. We played that thing hours every day to catch up with the season schedule for 1967-68. That was my first set of league books filled in.

[kenyan_cheena]

Test Match Cricket Game | Mr Toys Toyworld Online Australia

[MarkInCincy]

Originally Posted by Orcin

I also had a Pitchback. I used to throw at this thing for hours.

I did a lot batting practice with it too, hold bat in left, throw the ball with right then grab the bat with both hands and swing away (I mowed yards so I could buy baseballs by the dozen and pay my younger brother to retrieve them for me)

[echolodge]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Not talking Strat O Matic, APBA, Status Pro etc.

My all time favorite had to be Lever Hockey. I loved that game. Sad thing was, I only had a few friends that could actually play the game worth a damn. We would create leagues and use a clock radio to time the periods. We even kept stats. Tons of fun.

I think I had every football game ever created, electric, talking, see action.
The strangest football game I ever had though involved a huge rubber mat for the field (picture the game Twister) a running back you attached to a windup device and defensive players on wheels that you rolled at the running back trying to knock him down. Not even sure if the game had a name. It came in a plain brown box. My mom got it for me and I'm not sure, but I think she may have been the only person to ever purchase the game.

Wow. Thanks for this post. You bought back lots of memories. Me and my buddy would wear our plastic Cubs & Pirates helmets and play wiffleball. Plastic bat n ball from drugstore. The strike zone was a frame with netting and ball would spring back. Mound was my parents concrete patio. The backyard served as the field. No homeruns allowed as distance too short. We also had marked areas for doubles and triples. In a narrow alley between house and the maple tree got u three bags! Singles had to pass pitcher on ground or in the air. We had loads of fun. The damage to my Dad's tomatoes n raspberries was not appreciated by management. Me and the same bud would also use a tennis ball and hockey net for hockey. The prize was Teaberry chewing gum, hence the Teaberry Cup. I lost and refused to give him the gum. Boy was he mad. Often my buddy couldn't come over so I devised solitaire versions like bouncing a tennis ball off the houses brick wall to field it. Throwing up a plastic soldier and using the wiffle ball bat to hit was a favorite. On the roof was a homerun. Might still be a few up there 40 years later. Using a empty plastic lemon juice container as a football and having a tennis ball can be the receiver was another. Sort for long post. Mom just passed away. Finding solace here.

[RchW]

Great post and sorry for your loss.

Edit; management rarely agrees with garden destruction.

[echolodge]

Originally Posted by RchW

Great post and sorry for your loss.

Edit; management rarely agrees with garden destruction.

Thanks, Rich. Really appreciate that. I can still here Dad wailing almost in a high pitched voice, "My tomatoes! My raspberries!" Miss him too. Since both of my parents were born in Europe, they didn't understand baseball. Mom would say that it was a bunch of guys standing around in their pajamas. She couldn't understand why they didn't swing at all the pitches. Try explaining to a Latvian woman the concept of a ball and strike sometime.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by echolodge

Wow. Thanks for this post. You bought back lots of memories. Me and my buddy would wear our plastic Cubs & Pirates helmets and play wiffleball. Plastic bat n ball from drugstore. The strike zone was a frame with netting and ball would spring back. Mound was my parents concrete patio. The backyard served as the field. No homeruns allowed as distance too short. We also had marked areas for doubles and triples. In a narrow alley between house and the maple tree got u three bags! Singles had to pass pitcher on ground or in the air. We had loads of fun. The damage to my Dad's tomatoes n raspberries was not appreciated by management. Me and the same bud would also use a tennis ball and hockey net for hockey. The prize was Teaberry chewing gum, hence the Teaberry Cup. I lost and refused to give him the gum. Boy was he mad. Often my buddy couldn't come over so I devised solitaire versions like bouncing a tennis ball off the houses brick wall to field it. Throwing up a plastic soldier and using the wiffle ball bat to hit was a favorite. On the roof was a homerun. Might still be a few up there 40 years later. Using a empty plastic lemon juice container as a football and having a tennis ball can be the receiver was another. Sort for long post. Mom just passed away. Finding solace here.

Ah the plastic batting helmets. I actually started collecting those when I was a kid. Would get 1 or 2 of them each time we attended a Tiger game. By about the 10th grade, I had every team and some twice if they had changed their design. Not sure, but they might all be sitting in my mom's attic.

[echolodge]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Ah the plastic batting helmets. I actually started collecting those when I was a kid. Would get 1 or 2 of them each time we attended a Tiger game. By about the 10th grade, I had every team and some twice if they had changed their design. Not sure, but they might all be sitting in my mom's attic.

Let's dust some off and get a tournament going! How cool. Could play with the same rules before my childhood home sells.

[RchW]

I missed association football when we emigrated to Canada so I saved up money to buy Subbuteo. We got a piece of hardboard? to put the felt on permanently, but after all that work I really didn't play it much. Resistance was futile I assimilated to North American sports by the late 1960's.

[jpeters1734]

growing up in the 90's I feel like I missed a lot of cool games. It was madden and world series baseball on the sega genesis for me.

[CONN CHRIS]

Did anyone have this? I wore mine out.

[Jason Moyer]

http://www.museumofplay.org/online-c...4/Z0047466.jpg

I also played the crap out of this:



And then, of course, there was good old Hardball! on my Apple ][, as well as a million Appleworks spreadsheets I used to keep track of every game I played. I wish I still had those.

[ThatSeventiesGuy]

Originally Posted by Jason Moyer

http://www.museumofplay.org/online-c...4/Z0047466.jpg

I also played the crap out of this:



And then, of course, there was good old Hardball! on my Apple ][, as well as a million Appleworks spreadsheets I used to keep track of every game I played. I wish I still had those.

Yes! I had that, too. Fun game, if a little simplistic. I was mostly a Strat guy, with a bit of Statis Pro Basketball thrown in.

There was also a video game, can't remember the name of it...it had a weird flaw, where if you pitched this one guy - I think his name was Waters, his team was Omaha - past around the 5th inning, every time you threw a pitch high and outside, the batter would swing and miss. EVERY TIME. So needless to say, Waters was my workhorse, and Omaha won several years straight.

Edit: Found it! This is it... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bases_L...8video_game%29