My family and I moved from Brooklyn, where smooth solid walls
on the side of buildings were plentiful, to a neighborhood outside
the city with plenty of single family houses. None of these houses
had a decent wall to play handball against. If the side of a house
didn't have a window in the way, then it had uneven layers of
siding. Even the walls at school had windows causing interference
and the nearest park with a handball wall was not near at all.
Too far to walk and too young to drive.
One summer afternoon when I was fourteen, my brothers and I were
hanging with some friends on my parents' driveway. We were talking
about how we missed playing handball and tried to explain the
game to a few of our new friends who never heard of handball before.
Since we could not bounce the old "spalding" ball off
the house, I bounced the ball off the smooth blacktop surface
of the driveway. Before the afternoon was over we had played a
dozen rounds of a new game I made up on the spot. It was called
"Three misses you're out." Basically it was hand ball
with the driveway as the wall and court area. Each person had
to punch the ball upward in turn and make sure it bounced on the
driveway. The next player to go had to hit the ball up before
it bounced a second time or went off the driveway and out of play.
If you missed your turn, hit the ball out of play or missed hitting
the ball up, that counted as one miss. The last person left won.
It wasn't until fifteen years later that I made the rules more
sophisticated, thought out a more comprehensive scoring system,
designed the logo with a box, found suppliers of all the components
and created a circular playing court for a blacktop surface as
well as the sands of a beach. Thus a new handball game was produced
with a new challenge for any kid, college student or avid handball
player. This was BLACKTOP® Handball, played on a blacktop
surface straight up and without any walls!
I thank you for your time and consideration about buying one of
our BLACKTOP® Handball game kits. I trust you are up to the
challenge, because this game is not as easy as you think.
P.S. The very important tips on how to master BLACKTOP®
Handball come with the instructions in the game box kit.
Handball, I mean BLACKTOP® anyone?