Steve was a good man and a friend to Streetplay. His absence is still sorely missed. His name and memory lives in our hearts and minds at Streetplay as well as legions of people in the NYC stickball community.
Steve Mercado plays stickball on the National Mall, 2001
Maybe the snide comments we’ve made about today’s baseball players are having a positive effect: we just learned via self-styled Bronx sports reporter “JR” of the “JR Sport Brief” [links on YouTube and Twitter] that Alex Rodriguez recently spent some time in an honest-to-goodness Bronx backlot (along with less-renowned but equally applaudable Jerry Hairston Jr.).
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-XugMm4_zY
The normal sports news gathering apparatus didn’t seem to be anywhere in sight: just JR, a couple of Yankees, and kids. I do wish that they were using actual stickball bats, but I’m sure the kids didn’t mind. Kudos to both players.
Earlier this season, Yankee Mark Teixeira was seen playing some stickball down in Florida during spring training (see a local TV news report below). Let’s hope this is the start of a trend!
Steve was a good man and a friend to Streetplay. His absence is still sorely missed. His name and memory lives in our hearts and minds at Streetplay as well as legions of people in the NYC stickball community.
Steve Mercado (click for more photos)
The ongoing newsfeed search for “stickball” has turned up this gem today: a suite of “street games” for your Wii gaming console!
Go Play City Sports by Majesco Entertainment
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jKWJLU5lNg
Video courtesy of NintendoWorldReport.com; read their review of the game
I’m not sure whether this is great–keeping the games alive for future generations–or whether it’s just more fodder for the oft-heard argument that videogames keep kids indoors getting fat sitting on the couch. And it’s true: this is at least the second street game-based videogame available (MLB Stickball is the first I know of). I don’t know my take on this yet: maybe this will encourage kids to go outside and play the games they rehearse on the Wii. And I love my Wii, so it would be a little duplicitous to say an ill word against it. But I do wish that the “handball” depicted here were the Ace-King-Queen version, though (where the ball hits the ground before hitting the wall). And where’s skully?
I mainly wish the milieu depicted by publisher Majesco Entertainment weren’t so shabby; it’s an insult to people who actually lived (or live) in the city as a child. The implication is that the street is a dirty, ragtag place that (thankfully) the shiny white Wii box is saving you from having to experience firsthand. Hey, when I grew up, that setting was my home, and it was the greatest place to be in the world.
I’ve been following Streetplay-oriented things for some time now, and have set up various RSS feeds and search alerts for key terms like “stickball,” “skully,” etc., to keep track of media mentions of our beloved topic. What comes up most with these automagical content creators–aside from actual street game content–is stickball’s relation to youth and urban nostalgia. Specifically, when an older notable New Yorker publishes a book, or gives a speech referring to his/her youth, or (most commonly) dies, stickball is mentioned, usually in a mythic relation to a carefree childhood filled with Homeric sporting achievement.
Dakota Steakhouse in Latham, NY (from TroyRecord.com)I’m moved to write about this because of today’s unexpected “stickball” story, a review of a restaurant in upstate New York:
Dakota Steakhouse Not As Remembered (Troyrecord.com)
If any of you have seen a reference to stickball that has nothing really to do with playing the game, please comment on this posting!
