Revisiting a very obscure sports rivalry

By Gerard Shields

New York has its stickball, in which batters brag about how many manhole covers they can hit the ball over. But in Philadelphia, the game is halfball, or "halfies."

As the name of the game suggests, balls are sliced in half and pitched to a batter who tries to smack them up against a factory or school wall with a broomstick. Years ago, we used a pimple ball, a rubber ball named for its bumps. Those have become hard to find, so today many players use cut tennis balls.

Part of the allure of halfies is that they are soft. When they hit a window, they bounce off, so players don't have to worry about scrambling when a window gets smashed.

The rules are simple: Slap a halfie from the pitch against the first floor, and it's a single. It's a double if it hits the second floor, a triple for the third, and a homer if it hits the fourth floor or goes over the roof.

Recently, as part of my celebration of my 50th birthday, I decided to seek out a game of halfball and see if I still had what it takes. There was only one man to call: Joe the Bear.

Joe the Bear and I became aware of each other's existence during a halfies game more than 30 years ago. We were both pitching for our teams in a game played against the redbrick wall of a paper factory in our neighborhood. Joe the Bear was a high school senior and I a mere freshman.

At one point during the game, Joe got angry about the way I was pitching. Between innings, tradition dictates that there be a gentlemanly exchange of the halfies stack and broomstick. But Joe the Bear, being upset with me, dropped the halfies just as I reached out for them.

As experienced players know, when a stack of halfies hits the street, they scatter in all directions. Anger burning in my chest, I was forced to stoop over and pick them up.

During my next at-bat, I retaliated by letting the stick "slip" out of my hands, whereupon it twirled end over end directly at Joe the Bear's head. He started marching toward me, and I toward him. We met in the middle of the street, on top of the trolley tracks, and he angrily pointed his finger in my face.

"You're a little too big for yourself," he said.

"Bring it on," I replied.

Our friends broke up the scrum. After the game, we all went to Reilly's to share steaks, hoagies, and fries. There, Joe the Bear and I patched up our differences, and we've been best friends ever since.

So I placed a recent call to my longtime halfies adversary. I told him to get the stick out and I'd pick up the tennis balls. We cut them up and headed to our favorite field, our old grade school.

Much to our dismay, someone had stuck a school speed-limit pole right where the pitcher's mound used to be. Joe the Bear decided that we'd stand in front of the pole and pitch.

During the warm-up, we swung like the proverbial rusty gate. We couldn't hit anything, and the balls seemed much smaller than we remembered.

When the game started, though, I got a single in the first inning. I hit a double in the second, and I started thinking that the old swing was coming back.

Joe the Bear loaded the bases in the third, but my Roy Halladay shirt and I got out of that jam.

The game was finally decided in the fifth. Joe the Bear got three singles and a double for the only two runs he needed to win.

After the game, we sat on the nearest stoop, huffing and puffing and reliving our glory days. We laughed about how our friend Heppy once crashed face-first into the Jacquin's liquor factory warehouse while chasing a hit.

"Remember the time everybody tried to hit Sean Brennan with line drives?" Joe the Bear asked laughing.

We played a second game, and Joe the Bear won that one, too, 1-0. There were two outs in the bottom of the ninth when I had my last chance of the day, and I swung for the rafters like Ryan Howard. But my best hit of the afternoon bounced off the top of the speed-limit sign, falling to the ground for the final out.

Joe the Bear shrieked: "Thank you, Michael Nutter!"

As we walked away, halfies and stick in hand, I tried to remember what the game was really about: Sharing a gorgeous, sunny Sunday afternoon with your best friend, and reliving good times and memories that even the mighty power of time could not take away from us.

Of course, it's much better when you win.

Curse you, Joe the Bear.