Author Archives: Eric Leventhal

Backyard Football

My informant used to play tackle football – yes that’s right, TACKLE football – in a friend’s backyard, with no pads or helmets or anything.  His friend had a large enough backyard to accommodate play.  Also this was, according to my informant, back in the days before wavers and rampant lawsuits and whatnot.  If you got hurt, you got hurt and went home and that was the end of that.  So everyone would get together at this one person’s house and divide up into teams, usually it would be 5 on 5, but sometimes as big as 7 on 7.  It was self-hike, and you could pass or run.  The backyard was big but it wasn’t quite football field huge, so there were no distance markers, just two end zones marked out.  You had to get a first down or a touchdown or else you would be forced to give up the ball.  First downs were obtained by making two complete passes.  Players were also allowed to throw lateral passes during plays, making the game very “Razzle Dazzle” as my informant put it.

While I have never played padless tackle football, I have played several games of small-field football.  Usually there were one of two ways you could make a first down.  Either you had to cross the halfway point of the field, or you had to make two complete passes during your first four downs.  Also when the ball was turned over on downs, the other team simply took their ball all the way back to where it would be if the original team had made a touchdown.  Interceptions, on the other hand, are played at the spot where the interceptor is deemed down.  Back in the 70’s though, people were not as uptight as they are now about kids getting hurt and roughhousing and such, and parental supervision was hardly required for kids to play sports.  This does not necessarily mean that parents were less concerned with the safety of their children than they are now, but instead that no one wants to get sued, so they make sure that no harm befalls their children or, more importantly, that no harm befalls other children while they are around.  As soon as someone figured out that you can so another person when your child gets hurt at their house, everyone was in a hurry to make sure playdates and games were absolutely safe, lest they get their butt sued.

Wallball variant – Ledgeball

My informant played a game similar to what is now known today as Wallball.  His version of the game was called Ledgeball due to the ledge against which it was played.  Ledgeball does not have the same free-for-all nature that Wallball does, and is played for points instead of for staying power.  However, it still involves throwing a ball against a flat surface and catching it.

According to my informant, the game was played by a group of throwers and one or two defenders.  Throwers would take turns throwing the ball against the ledge and trying to get it to land inside a marked area.  The defenders would attempt to catch the ball before it hit the ground.  If it hit the ground the throwers got a point.  If the defenders caught it or if it landed outside the marked area, then the defenders got a point.  One of the strategies that throwers could use was aiming very low on the ledge, so that the ball would only go a little bit before hitting the ground.  Another strategy was to throw it so that it would bounce over the heads of the defenders.   People who frequently defended would get really fast and develop good reflexes.  Ledgeball was played with either a tennis ball or a rubber playground ball, with tennis balls being preferred.

While this is markedly different from the Wallball that I played in my youth, this has many of the same traits.  Players throw a ball against a wall, other players attempt to catch it.  And most importantly it is played with either a tennis ball or a playground ball, both of which are still used in Wallball today.  Granted, this version of Wallball was played back in the 30’s so it will understandably be very different from what we know today, although it could be an ancestor or cousin of modern Wallball.

Easter games and traditions

My informant came from a mixed background.  One side of her family was Romanian and the other side was Italian.  During Easter, she would take part in traditions from both groups.  One of the Romanian traditions she would partake in was called Choking Eggs, where two people make painted eggs and then hard-boiled them.  Each person would then take their egg and smash them against each other until one of them broke.  The value of winning was increased if your egg was especially pretty.  One of the Italian traditions involved playing a game called Bachi in the lawn and the game involved throwing marbles.  Also an Italian Easter tradition involved making all sorts of breads.  One such bread was a woven bread filled with breakfast foods like hardboiled eggs and salami and such.

Thanksgiving Traditions

I learned from my informant that ever since she was a little girl, her family has always hosted a large Thanksgiving dinner.  Members of her extended family as well as members of the Stern extended family would come to her house and all have a big dinner.  Her mother would make the turkey and everyone else would bring something along or make something.  One person usually brought a vegetable salad.  She herself started baking desserts for Thanksgiving when she was in high school.  And these desserts rarely included anything pumpkin because no one in the super-extended family liked pumpkin very much.  Then after everyone was done eating and talking, they would all gather round and play card games and eat popcorn.  Hearts was usually the game of choice but some people also played spades.  Later in life, after most of the younger family members grew up and had gotten married, and the large family became even larger, they started playing huge games of hearts with multiple decks.

The rules for regular hearts are listed here so that the extended rules make more sense for those who have never played the original.  In hearts, a standard 52-card deck is divided between four players.  The player to go first in a round plays a card, then the next player must play a card of the same suit if possible.  After all four players have played, whomever played the highest card of the leading suit takes all the cards, then must be the starting player in the next round.  For the first round, the player with the 2 of clubs must go first.  Hearts may not be played on the first turn, and a player may not lead a turn with hearts until hearts have already been played.  Hearts are worth one point, and the Queen of Spades is worth 13 points.  At the end of the game, you tally all the points you have, and at the end of all the games, the player with the fewest points wins.  Additionally, before each game, you must pass three of the cards in your hand to the player in a given direction, alternating between left, right, across, and no pass.

For the extended version, all of the regular rules apply, except that the player to go first on the first round is the first player to the left of the dealer who has a 2 of clubs.  The only major addition to the rules is that multiples of the same card cancel out.  So if there are two King of Clubs on the board, and clubs is the leading suit, neither king counts for the highest card, and instead the turn goes to the player who played the highest singular card (non-canceled) in the leading suit.  In games with three or more decks, if the third multiple of a card comes out, then that card is not canceled and is treated normally.  Additionally, the passing order is slightly modified, and is now left, right, two to the left, and two to the right.  According to my informant, these new rules lead to emergent play.  First and foremost, players have a lot more power depending on where they are in the turn.  Players near the end are often begged and pleaded to cancel out whoever is highest (or not to cancel out the high player if said beggar/pleader has the second-highest card).  If you want to screw over a particular player, you may choose to cancel the high card and force someone else to take the turn.  Also, she says that when you are passing cards at the start of the turn, and your hand has multiples in it, you should pass one of the multiples to the designated person and then try and work with them to hurt others.  For instance, if you are dealt both Queen of Spades, you can give it to the designated person, and then plot to play them one after another, preventing either of you from having to take your own queens as well as sticking some unlucky bastard with 26 points in one turn!

My informant also told me of one last tradition that revolves around this large game of hearts.  At the end of the game, either when someone gets 100 points or everyone gets tired, the three players with the highest scores all got to go on the family vacation.

Magic the Gathering – Pile Shuffling 2

My informant spoke to me about rituals and practices of Magic the Gathering.  Of the most ritual acts of Magic is the shuffling ritual.  Since shuffling must always take place before a game, and since it involves the player’s deck, often something very personal to them, shuffling is very ritualistic.  While each player does it slightly differently, they almost always do it the same way and sometimes doing it differently gives you a bad feeling about the game.

The way my informant prefers to shuffle is with two runs of the 5-Pile shuffle, followed by riffle shuffling.  5-Pile shuffling is where you take the deck in one hand, or half the deck if it’s too big to hold, and you place cards from the top into five piles as though you were dealing out hands of poker.  You continue to place the cards into these piles until you have placed all the cards, then you pick them up and put them back into one big pile.  According to my informant, one of his friends told him this was the optimal way to shuffle the deck for good randomization.

I am also a Magic the Gathering player and I also employ the 7-pile shuffle method.  After each pile has been dealt, I will stack the 7 piles into two piles, then riffle shuffle those together before starting more riffle shuffle.  I learned the 7-pile shuffle method from a friend who simply said it was a good way to shuffle.  It’s also a good way to make sure you have the right number of cards in the deck, since you know which pile the last card should end up in if you did it right.  I also like the 7-pile shuffle method because when you start a game of Magic, each player draws 7 cards, so 7 piles for 7 cards lines up nicely.

Attached to the submission are two photos.  One photo is a demonstration of 5-pile shuffling and the other is a demonstration of 7-pile shuffling.