Playing In the Street

It seemed like every day when I got home from grade school I would get in, take off my blue pants and white shirt and put on "play clothes" and run back outside where all gaming hell would break loose.

I'm talking about playing in the street man, the proving grounds, the football field, baseball diamond, basketball court, kickball place, and hockey rink. The border line in capture the flag, guns, and sometimes, the war zone for dodgeball and smear the queer. Okay, so maybe smear the queer isn't the best game to play in the street, but I like saying "smear the queer".

Now in the hay-day of my street baller status (wow, scary to type) we played alotta football, some baseball, and alotta guns. "Hey SamWow, what's guns?" I'm glad you asked loyal reader. Guns is a game where you get guns (NERF, water guns, toy guns) and run around yards and the street shooting each other. Guns was the perfect boys game and not a game for girls, a girls simple mind couldn't possibly comprehend all the running, diving, sliding, screaming, aiming, and trigger pulling. That's an art that cannot be learned quickly. The only problem with guns is what I'm gonna write below this.

Shooter - "You're dead! I shot you!"

Dude Who Got Capped - "No I'm not, you missed!"

Shooter - "No you're dead, lie down/go back to base!"

Dude Who Got Capped - "No, you missed!"

These arguments could go on for hours, sometimes ending in fights, usually ending in either the Shooter or Dude Who Got Capped running home crying like a little bitch. It's kinda like when you play dodgeball and you throw, hit someone, but they say they weren't hit. Arguements explode, laywers are called, and then the gym teacher takes dodgeball away from the whole class. Thanks alot Un-named Freshman in my high school class...thanks alot.

Kids in Cambodia play Guns for keeps.

But out here on North Cliff Road, we were uh, innovative? We thought we had the best idea ever. Why not combine playing guns with capture the flag. Oh my god! Totally original! But probably not. I guess before we could all handle our pieces(glocks, straps, guns), we played by tagging people but come on, it was like, 2001, technology and shit led us to guns. And it led to a awesome game that pretty much turned into Guns with a insignificant objective that looked alot like a tennis ball hidden in a tree.

Now, if your Dad was born in the '50s or '60s, ask him if he remembers/owned and Johnny Seven OMA (One-Man-Army). My Pop did, and I think a few of his brothers did too and they played Guns like champions. I don't really know what words to use to describe the pure awesome firepower that the Johnny Seven OMA contained so I'll put up the picture and tell you this - I want one. Bad. Heres the commercial. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPhZsauluXM

So now I wanna talk about my true street sport passion. Street football. What was the only place I could pretend I threw like Tom Brady, ran like Marshall Faulk, caught passes like Jerry Rice, pass rush like Lawrence Taylor, and ball hawk like Ed Reed? The street. The home of the three, five, and seven Mississippi blitz (I only put seven in there cuz I'm told in MoCo they rush after seven. Lame.), the place where saying "Shotgun" meant you take a few steps backwards before you hike it and the defense can come at you free, without using their one blitz. Street football was the home of two hand touch rules, two completions for a first down(some went by car lengths), never punting, no extra points, where running the ball was done by the quarterback, and where a recievers route was a thirty step fade route that would cut back twenty steps towards the quarterback.

You learned to talk smack, you could "Moss" people (for those of you who didn't grow up in Gorgeous Prince Georges, to "Moss" someone was to make an epic catch and burn the coverage for a touchdown), you played until dinner or until it was too dark to see the ball, the curbs were out of bounds and mailboxes, cars, and cracks in the street were the endzones. It was the sport at it's purest form, drop back and sling it. And if you were like me, you always tried to do touchdown dances like Ladanian Tomlinson, Terrell Davis, T.O., or some other superstar.

It was an amazing thing to play and still is today. On Christmas we played on my Grandmommy's street (a fine place to play) and it just gets competieve. It starts off all fun and games then you start fudging holding rules and pass intereference (looked that one up in the dictionary). This years game was a rout but it's still fun, I still picture myself as Jason Campbell, Donald Driver, Jerrod Mayo, or Champ Bailey even though I'm unathletic and white.

So that's what playing outside was to me for the most part, if you have anything awesome you used to do playing on the street when you were a kid type something up and send it to my e-mail (samcarroll9@gmail.com) or find me on facebook (SamWow Carroll) or twitter @therealSamWow.

Also, in my last post I said this was gonna be about Jim Vanve, rocks, and my future wife(maybe that'll be the next post). I got off work and stepped outside and decided this post would be more suiting to the weather seeing how it was about seventy degrees in the District.