I was watching a Braves’ game
other night, and announcers were droning on and on about how much skill it took to play baseball. They got into speeds and types of pitches, conditioning and reflexes, split second decision making, all kinds of stuff like that. You can just about imagine dialogue as we’ve all heard it at least a million times before. Well, they can talk about pro baseball all they want to in terms of skill, but it runs a far distant second to a real man’s sport - its cousin and derivative, “burr ball.”
For those of you out there who don’t know what burr ball is, its a game we played in my backyard in suburban Juliette back when I was growing up. Ed Jr. was originator, and no game I’ve ever played, before or since, has proved as challenging as burr ball.
For burr ball, you played a one-on-one match-up. There was a hitter and pitcher, and that was it. An axe handle served as bat, and hitter was stationed about twenty-five feet behind our house in backyard, pointed at house. The rules were simple - each side had three outs, games were nine innings long, if you hit one over roof it was a home run, if you hit one on roof it was an out if pitcher caught it before it touched ground. If he dropped it when it rolled off roof, you had a hit and a runner on base.
Hitting wasn’t what made burr ball challenging, though - it was pitching, and what was pitched, that accomplished that. What was pitched was one of three items:
Dried up sweet gum burrs that were placed in a pail of water.
Dried up hickory nut shell quarters.
Full, green hickory nuts.
Think hitting those items wasn’t a challenge? That was only half of it, cause man that pitched them to me, Ed Jr., was recognized Greg Maddux of burr ball.
Let me give you an idea - it would be my turn at bat, and I’d be holding that axe handle, standing about twenty feet from Ed Jr. He’d have a grimace on his face, and would stare at me for longest period of time. In his right hand he held what might be a burr, a hickory nut, or a hickory nut shell. You never knew which one he would use, although you did know that he at least had a burr in his hand cause of water that would be dripping off his fist.
