What It Was Like Growing Up in the 1950's/1960's
Entry posted by Paul D in Baseball in the 50's and 60's ·
13,083 views
Twins Video
Growing up in the 1950’s was so different for those of us who loved to play baseball. Today you can drive past a ball field during the summer and find it empty. With us we needed to rise early in the morning, have a quick breakfast and ride our bikes to the closest field hoping to be there before another group staked its claim. And besides bringing your baseball equipment, you needed to have a lunch with you. If you didn’t eat lunch at the field you took a chance that the field wouldn't be empty when you returned.
Of course our equipment was different. My glove was a Rawlings John Groth model (outfielder for the Tigers). The glove was small and the web was barely large enough to contain the ball. Only the catcher and first baseman had the "big gloves."
The ball we used was probably coming unstitched and was dark and dirty. If the stitching was too far gone, the ball was covered in electrical tape, normally the shiny kind.
Lastly, we probably only had one or two bats between us and in most cases the bat was probably broken and was held together with either a nail in the bat, or more electrical tape (the non-shiny type acted as a nice grip). Batting gloves were not thought of at this time, and would have been perceived as unmanly.
We didn’t need adults to organize us, and we didn’t need rides to get to the field.
Most of us played Little League, but usually we were all on different teams. The good players make the “majors” at 10 years old, the lesser at 11 or 12 (12 year olds were not allowed to play in the “minors”).
Our Little League uniforms had been used for a number of years and the knees on our pants probably had a patch or two on them. The shirt and pants were made of flannel, so they lasted for many years, but during the heat of the summer, they were really hot. Our hats and stirrups were made of wool and the stirrups usually needed an elastic at the top of them to stop them from drooping every time you ran.
We had batting helmets, but they were not really helmets, but earmuffs. They were made of leather and came in a couple of sizes.
But baseball was king. There was no organized football for us and very few options for playing basketball. Most football was one or two hand touch and played in the street. Living on a quiet street was a huge plus because you wouldn’t have to keep stopping the game to let cars pass. Basketball rims were at the playground, but many of us hung a basket from our garage and played in our driveway.
Most of us collected and traded baseball cards.
Buying cards was convenient. During the school year, we would walk past two stores near our school that sold baseball cards and penny candy. During the summer our neighborhood was serviced by a traveling store. The vehicle was about the size of a self-contained RV and was like a convenience store on wheels. It came by 3 days a week, and always stopped in our neighborhood, because most of our families were Italian and we had to have Italian bread with our supper.
You could buy cards two ways, for one cent you could buy a pack with one card in it, and for five cents the pack would contain 6 cards.
There was no such strategy of collecting stars. Your goal was to have a complete set, and if you needed to trade a star for one of your missing commons, you’d do it.
Of course we all had a favorite team. Living in Rhode Island there were two options: you rooted for the Red Sox and hated the Yankees, or you rooted for the Yankees and hated the Red Sox. A lot of friends started out as Red Sox fans, but changed their allegiance because the Yankees always won and the Red Sox never did. I would collect and hoard Red Sox players and draw beards and mustaches on Yankee players. I can’t image how many Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra cards I had were ruined because of beards.
Cards were for collecting and making complete sets.
Doubles and triples were used for pitching. Pitching cards was a school yard activity. You would take your extras to school and either at recess or after lunch you’d find an empty area with a wall. Because you were pitching these cards against a wall, there were no cards in mint condition. They all had rounded edges from colliding with a wall, or have creases because you bent the card as you were picking them up off the ground (usually cement or asphalt).
We played three different games and who ever won the previous game would pick the game. The first game was “farzees (pronounced far zees)”. The game was not limited to one player against another, you could put together as large a group as you could find. With farzees you would pitch your card (one toss per player) and the person who’s card stopped closest to the wall would win all the cards. On occasion the card would stand up. A standing card would beat any other card that was tossed.
The second game was “standeez (pronouced stand eez)”. With standeez the person choosing the game would stand a card up against the wall. It would be at about a 30 degree angle. The game would end when someone tossed their card and it knocked the standing card down to the ground. If you knocked the card down, you would win all of the cards that had been tossed up to that point. Baseball cards were severely damaged in this game. You never wanted to hit the standing card and not knock it down because you didn't toss your card hard enough.
The last game was “topzees (pronouced top zees)”. With topzees the person choosing the game would pitch a card out in the playing area, trying to keep it away from any wall. The winner of the game was the person who would toss their card and it would land on top of any of the cards already on the ground. It didn’t have to cover a lot of the card, just some part of it. The winner would pick up all of the cards that had already been tossed.
Because most of us “pitched” cards, finding cards from the 50’s or early 60’s rarely came in mint or excellent condition. We never anticipated that our cards would ever be worth anything and that the stars would be worth more than the common. We loved our cards because they were play things, never investments.
Please feel free to leave comments on this article, especially if you are at an age where you may have pitched cards also.
My blog will try to recreate loving the game of baseball and what it was like playing and watching the game in the 50’s and 60’s.
26 Comments
Recommended Comments
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now