It was a summer day on Jennings Street in Beckley, WV. The guys were trying to rustle up enough players for a baseball contest in our version of Yankee Stadium. We found 4 available boys, obviously not enough for a ball game, but there were 4 girls up the street playing hopscotch. I conferred with Carolyn Meadows, manager of the Hopscotch team and we came to terms. If the boys played a few games of hopscotch with them, they would reciprocate and play outfield at our ballpark.
Game on. We played hopscotch and the girls cleaned our clocks.
Hopscotch is a century’s old children’s game that tests accuracy with a stone and agility at hopping on one foot. The boys were decent as stone throwers but fizzled out in the agility department.
To play hopscotch, the girls drew ten squares with chalk – 2 in a row, then 2 to a side, then 1, then 2 to a side, then one, then 2 to the side and finally 2 in a row.
You began by tossing a flat stone into the first square. It hand to land within the square for a player to continue. You hopped on one foot to that square, picked up the stone, then hopped back. Then repeat to the next square. The object was to be the first to hop all the way up and then back. I don’t recall ever winning a game of hopscotch, but I was pretty decent fielding grounders at short stop and the girls were excellent ball chasers.
Every now and then I’ll see the remnants of a hopscotch layout, but not often. I also seldom see a makeshift baseball field. I suppose all the potential hopscotch and baseball players are inside connected to their cell phones. And that’s a shame.
