by Paul Tukey
TAG, TOSS & RUN
40 CLASSIC LAWN GAMES
Paul Tukey & Victoria Rowell
The mission of Storey Publishing is to serve our customers by
publishing practical information that encourages
personal independence in harmony with the environment.
Edited by Carleen Madigan and Lisa H. Hiley
Art direction by Alethea Morrison
Book design by woolypear
Text production by Jennifer Jepson Smith
Photography credits appear on page 204
Cover and primary game illustrations by © Adam McCauley
Additional spot illustrations by woolypear
Indexed by Christine R. Lindemer, Boston Road Communications
© 2012 by Paul Tukey and Victoria Rowell
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages or reproduce illustrations in a review with appropriate credits; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other — without written permission from the publisher.
The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. All recommendations are made without guarantee on the part of the author or Storey Publishing. The author and publisher disclaim any liability in connection with the use of this information.
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Storey Publishing
210 MASS MoCA Way
North Adams, MA 01247
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Printed in the United States by Versa Press
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Tukey, Paul.
Tag, toss & run / by Paul Tukey and Victoria Rowell.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-60342-560-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Games—Juvenile literature. 2. Outdoor games—Juvenile literature. I. Rowell, Victoria. II. Title.
GV1203.T85 2012
790.1922—dc23
2011049410
Dedication
To Dad and Marny and the Lessels family for keeping those lawn games alive and well in our lives for all these years
— P. T.
To my loving children, Maya and Jasper, and my foster mother, Agatha Wooten Armstead, for raising me on Forest Edge, our 60-acre farm in West Lebanon, Maine, where she introduced me to so many fun backyard games, with laughter, love, and patience
— V. R.
Contents
Introduction
Who Goes First?
Calling All Players
Backyard Golf
Badminton
Blind Man’s Bluff
Bocce
British Bulldogs
Capture the Flag
Cherokee Marbles
Chinese Jump Rope
Cornhole
Crab Soccer
Croquet
Dodgeball
Double Ball
Double Dutch
Field Hockey
Flag Football
Flying Disc
Follow the Leader
Fox and Hounds
Ghost in the Graveyard
Hoop Trundling
Horseshoes
Kick the Can
Kickball
Kubb
Lacrosse
Ladder Toss
London Bridge
Mexican Kickball
Mölkky
Quoits
Red Light, Green Light
Red Rover
Sack Race
Scavenger Hunt
Sepak Takraw
Tug of War
Volleyball
Wheelbarrow Race
Wiffle Ball
Five Prized Pavement Games
Authors’ Notes
Resources
Acknowledgments
Credits
Index
Introduction
“The American people cannot fail to welcome a new book on play. Throughout our country there is a growing appreciation of its importance and its necessity during childhood and youth . . . no child can develop normally unless he has opportunities for a large amount of diversified play.”
— Michael Vincent O’Shea
Director of Education,
University of Wisconsin
We would like to believe that statement is as true as if it were spoken yesterday. But when Professor Michael Vincent O’Shea, the esteemed director of education at the University of Wisconsin, penned the above words in 1910, he could not possibly have contemplated that children’s “play” would come to be defined by computer and video games as much as by balls, bats, or hide-and-seek.
As authors of this book on children’s games, we have traveled the world on vastly disparate personal and public voyages. One of us has been a dancer, an actress, and an author, the other a sportswriter turned lawn care professional and magazine publisher. The common ground that fostered our collective dreams, however, was rural Maine in the 1960s. From one-room schoolhouses where the desks still had inkwells to fuzzy black-and-white televisions (if our families owned one at all) to party-line systems where neighbors took turns on their telephones (if they could afford one), ours was a world almost unimaginable to scores of children a half century later.
Without Game Boys or Nintendos or Wiis, and without iPods, iPhones, or instant messaging, life then probably sounds bleak to today’s youth. But, oh, what fun we had! Our entire childhoods — spent with nothing more than our own wits and the loveable nitwits and nincompoops from our neighborhoods — were filled with endless outdoor games. Imagine this: our caregivers sent us through the front door in the morning with a sandwich in a brown bag and a canteen full of well water, but no cell phone, no pocket money, and, furthermore, no instructions other than to be home by dinnertime!
It wasn’t that the adults in our lives didn’t care about us. Quite the opposite. In our cases, however, they had farms to run, with long lists of chores, of which we were expected to do our share. When we were finished cooking, cleaning, and making our beds, the adults felt absolutely no responsibility to fill in our free time. And, as we discovered about each other, we both lived in an economic reality where store-bought toys and games were a rare privilege, not a right. It was as if the Grinch had come by to swipe our galooks and our great big electro-whocardio-shnoox — and never brought them back!
But just as Christmas still comes in the fabled Dr. Seuss classic, we still found our fun each day. Yes, we were poor, but we truly never knew it. If you recall gathering frog spawn in a jam jar, trapping a salamander under a tuna can or, we admit it, swiping the occasional bird’s egg from a nest, you recall what we mean by fun. If you know the term “jacking for worms” or the thrill of catching fireflies in a jar at night, you know that the natural world holds more wonders than any megastore.
You may know that. But do your children?
“For a new generation, nature is more abstraction than reality. Increasingly, nature is something to watch, to consume, to wear — to ignore,” wrote Richard Louv in Last Child in the Woods, the best-selling exposé about a phenomenon known as “nature deficit disorder” that explains children’s disconnect with nature and all it represents.
The other issue, of course, is the physical and mental toll of a life lived in front of a computer and television. Obesity levels for 5- and 6-year-olds have doubled in the past decade and are even worse for teenagers. At least 10 percent of ou
r kids have a diagnosed mental health problem ranging from attention deficit to hyperactivity to depression.
In bringing you this book, we are presenting a time-honored way for children to reconnect, not only with nature, but their communities, their comrades, their families, and their sense of self. In Tag, Toss & Run, we explore and perhaps introduce classic outdoor games in hopes that you will enjoy them with your children and teach your children to play them on their own. Whether played in your backyard, a public park, or in the paved nook of a cul-de-sac, these games, for children and the young at heart of all ages, are timeless treasures that — if you let them — will work their magic on your sons and daughters in the same way they might have nurtured you.
We think this book is at once timely and necessary, but it’s also a rollicking nostalgic ride for parents and grandparents who remember simpler, healthier times. As we recalled the playground and backyard games of our own childhoods, we laughed out loud at our own memories and relived some silly old fears of games that we originally found intimidating. We fondly recollected the exhilaration of being selected as captain, with the privilege of first pick. We chuckled at those common, old anxieties about swinging and missing, tripping awkwardly on the jump rope, or finishing last in a race. Those moments made the home runs and blue-ribbon finishes all the sweeter.
In presenting a book on mostly old-fashioned outdoor games in this day and age, we have to acknowledge that some parents, caregivers, school administrators, and even sociologists will take issue with our list. Five of the games we selected are also included in a rather notorious publication known as “The Hall of Shame Games.”
“The games included in the Hall of Shame have no business being played on a school playground and should be banned,” says the list’s creator, Professor Neil Williams of Eastern Connecticut State College, who has a doctorate in the instruction of physical education. “Some of the games have the potential to embarrass a student in front of his classmates, or to only celebrate the achievements of the truly gifted athletes. These games focus on the elimination of students from the contest. And some of these games are flat-out dangerous.”
But we’re more inclined to agree with Christina Hoff Sommers, author of One Nation Under Therapy: How the Helping Culture is Eroding Self- Reliance. “The good intentions or dedication of the self-esteem educators are not in question, but their common sense is,” she writes. “With few exceptions, the nation’s children are mentally and emotionally sound. They relish the challenge of high expectations. They can cope with red pens, Tug of War and Dodge Ball. They can handle being ‘It.’”
So be forewarned. We’ve included dodgeball, kickball, and Red Rover in our book. Not to mention British bulldogs, tug of war, and other games where children can suffer scrapes, bumps, and bruised psyches. Our view is not “danger be damned” and we certainly believe that no child should ever be forced to play any game at any time against his or her will. We also strongly believe children and their caregivers need to know these games, try them together at first, and then make their own decisions about whether to allow the children to play again.
Surely even Professor Williams would agree to that. We know Professor O’Shea did! Play — real play outdoors on the lawn — is probably even more important now than it was a century ago.
WHO GOES FIRST?
Choosing captains, picking sides, and deciding who goes first is part of many backyard games. Here are a few time-honored methods for settling the question.
FLIP OF A COIN
Heads or tails? A tried-and-true, easy way to get a game started but perhaps the least interesting.
ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS
A game unto itself, with its own world championship and an entry in Guinness World Records 2012 (6,500 players at once), Rock, Paper, Scissors is played with hand gestures of a fist (rock), two fingers (scissors) and open palm (paper). In a game of two players vying for captaincy, the rock trumps scissors, the paper beats rock and the scissors cuts the paper. If both players “throw” the same gesture, they play again.
HAND OVER HAND
Using a stick or, especially, a baseball bat, one player tosses the object to the other, who must catch the stick or bat no higher than halfway up. The would-be captains then alternate grabbing the object just above each other’s clenched fists until one player reaches the top and can stretch his or her thumb over the top of the stick or bat.
COUNTING OFF
In counting-off contests, one player recites a rhyme while pointing at a different player for each word in the rhyme. A classic example is, “One potato, two potato, three potato, four; five potato, six potato, seven potato, more; one big bad spud.” Whoever is being pointed at during the word “spud” is the “it” player for that game.
Another traditional rhyme is “Eeny, meeny, miney, mo; catch a tiger by the toe. If he hollers, let him go. Eeny, meeny, miney, mo.”
A CONTEST: ROTTEN EGG
This one can be a footrace or a throwing challenge. The slowest runner or shortest thrower becomes the “it” player.
WHICH HAND?
This straightforward contest involves hiding a pebble or other small object in one hand behind your back and having another player guess which hand. A correct selection wins the captaincy for that game.
DRAWING STRAWS
Another time-honored selection process, drawing straws is probably as old as, well, straw. Count out blades of grass or slender twigs for each person in the game, making sure one is noticeably shorter than the others. One player holds the straws in a fist, obscuring the ends, and each player draws one. The “it” player is the one who draws the shortest piece.
VOLLEY FOR SERVE
This is most often used in badminton, sepak takraw, and other net games that involve an initial serve to get the game going. A starting volley — which usually has to last for at least three consecutive successful hits across the net — is used to determine who goes first, or in some cases who is team captain.
Calling All Players
At the end of any game that involves hiding and seeking (see Capture the Flag or Kick the Can, for example), a call goes out to all players who are still hiding, telling them to come back to home base. Whether that call is “olly olly oxen free,” “ally ally in come free,” or one of any number of variations seems to depend on where you live, though “olly olly in come free” seems to be the most common current usage.
The origin is unclear but most sources claim the phrase derives from “all ye, all ye outs in free” or words to that effect, meaning that the game is over and players who haven’t been found can come in without being caught, either to start another round or to go home to supper.
The word “oxen” has nothing to do with cattle; it is thought to be a childish corruption of “outs in.” Some note the similarity to the German phrase “Alle, alle auch sind frei,” which means “everyone, everyone is also free.” Whatever the origin, this phrase has long been heard ringing out through neighborhoods and playgrounds and we hope it continues to do so!
Although it originally barely resembled the modern game in which players with metal clubs launch a small white ball toward tiny holes hundreds of yards away, golf has been enjoyed by players of all ages for centuries. Some serious players go to the extreme of installing putting greens in their lawns. Others dig sand pits so they can practice blasting balls to their heart’s content.
ALSO KNOWN AS Big Birdie Golf, Hole-in-One, Putt Putt, Qolf, Sholf
Stepping on a real public golf course, even a miniature golf course, for the first time can be an intimidating experience; gaining some confidence at home is a great first step. Those tight backyard confines become a great equalizer that allows a grandfather to teach the basics of the game to a grandchild or for siblings to engage in a little friendly competition.
THE SETUP
BASIC IDEA
Hit the ball in the hole using the fewest strokes possible
PLAYING AREA
Smooth, short g
rass is best
EQUIPMENT
• Clubs — putters are good; small ones are available for younger players
• A few golf balls
• A variety of targets (buckets, lawn furniture, branches — use your imagination!) to make a course
AGES
5 and up
PLAYERS
1 or more
No Fairway Required
You don’t need elaborate equipment and precision grooming to have fun in your own backyard. A club and a ball and some closely cropped grass with a few targets or obstacles are all that’s required for a friendly game. The possibilities for establishing a mini-golf obstacle course at home are endless — through the swing set, under the picnic table, around the oak tree, and in the “hole,” which can be any size container turned on its side, from as big as a bucket to as tricky as a tennis-ball can.
Rules. On the surface, golf is incredibly straightforward: The player taking the fewest number of shots to hit the ball into a hole or series of holes is the winner. On a conventional golf course, all sorts of other rules and etiquette come into play; golfers are huge on etiquette! But on a miniature course, pretty much the only rule is “hit the ball in the hole.” If it doesn’t roll in, hit it again. Players can determine if each one takes a turn at each hole or one person plays the whole course before the next player goes.
Strategy. Becoming a good putter takes lots of practice and the acquired ability to “read” the green or putting surface. That means you need to judge how hard to hit the ball given the thickness and height of the grass or mat, or how much the surface angles and undulates between the ball and the hole. When hitting or stroking a putt, some players will look at the hole, but the best advice is to keep your eye on the ball and your head steady until the head of the putter has made contact with the ball. That will give you the best chance of hitting the ball where you want it to go.