For whatever reason today, we were thinking about "500" -- not the elusive record of the Twins in the past two seasons, but the childhood game we used to play. According to Twitter responses, tons of you also played it.
Our variation went something like this: One person stood a decent distance away from a group, hurling -- usually -- either a baseball or a football in the group's general direction. The higher the better. The more unpredictable the better. This also worked with a batted baseball.
When the ball was in the air, the group would jostle for position, and whomever caught the ball gained 100 points. If they dropped a ball, they lost either 50 or 100 depending on how punitive the game was. First one to 500 won, and then that person became the thrower/hitter.
Questions:
1) Did you play different variations of the game?
2) Where does 500 rank on the all-time list of sports-related childhood games?
3) If we were to hypothetically organize a "Childhood Games Olympics" of some sorts this summer, what other games should be included and how fast would you sign up?
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