Posted on 03/19/2025 1:06:30 PM PDT by DallasBiff
Whether you’re barbecuing this weekend or just hanging out, what’s your go-to GAME you like to play in the backyard? We’ve got a ranking of the 10 BEST backyard games of all time based on fun, accessibility, and overall popularity. See if you agree . . .
1. Cornhole. It’s kind of THE go-to game now. Cincinnati gets credit for coming up with the modern version in the 1960s. But someone also patented a similar game with square holes way back in 1883.
2. Bocce. It’s good for multiple people, and you can play it anywhere. You don’t need a legit bocce court, or even a nice patch of grass. Just open space.
3. Wiffle ball. A guy in Connecticut made backyard baseball possible when he came up with it in 1953.
4. Two-hand-touch. Flag football is even better. Just stuff a rag in your belt.
5. Kickball. Fun fact: Brits call it “football rounders,” and Canadians call it “soccer baseball.” (You sure you want ’em as the 51st state, Mr. President?)
(Excerpt) Read more at alice965.com ...
My wife passed away a year ago this month and my house basically looks the same including all her clothes still in drawers and hanging up.
Maybe I’ll get the mental strength to finally start cleaning the house soon.
Can’t beat midget chess. Or global thermal nuclear war.
How about favorite childhood outdoor games?
Playing Army or War. Divided up in two teams and you ran around killing the other team by saying bang bang with toy guns and stick as guns. (You’d probably get shot by the cops nowadays).
Dirtclod fights. You throw dirt clods at each other, not trying to actually kill each other.
Rock fights. Same as dirtclods but with rocks. Hurts more.
Front yard football and backyard baseball
Ah, the good ole days...
LOL yes there is a bit of that. Points are based on how many of your team balls are closest to the little ball (cochonnet, means little pig in French). So if your team has 2 closest and the other team the 3rd closest your team gets 2 points. If all 4 of yours are closer than the other than you win all 4 points. So if you are down 3 or 4 points sometimes it pays to just smash the entire thing apart, move the little ball or knock the other players’ balls out of range. Because they are small steel balls, a tiny bit larger than hand grenades but spherical and heavy, it makes a great crashing sound! You do have to stand back lol.
Kick the can and flashlight tag
I am so sorry
My adult kids love Spikeball and whiffle ball
Aww, I’m sorry. I get it. My mother owned her own house and I became the executor to it. In the hottest month of Phoenix with the humidity up we had to empty it all out. I was having problems with a hip that needed surgery when this all happened and though it was accomplished I cried all through it, hating to do it.
I so get it. I’m sorry.
I like it! As long as the batteries are dead in all my buddies guns!
I have the original Jarts.
You know, it makes me think of the feeling I get when I hold a really large, dense, polished stainless steel ball bearing...I just have an irresistible urge to see how it acts as a projectile!
So...yeah. That aspect of the game you describe (Pétanque) would appeal to me. Doing it within the rules, of course! I imagine the object must be to hit at exactly the right angle and amount of force so that your ball goes as far into the distance as theirs does...
And because they are made out of steel instead of wood, the transfer of energy to their ball is going to have far less loss in the handoff as would be greater in two softer substances like wood. Changes the dynamic, I’ll wager.
we played that a few times- we were dumb- heck, probably still are-
Yes. So at first you draw a throwing line from which the players have to stand behind. One player throws the little ball. Then the first team pretty much wants to roll the ball towards the little ball. The first ball is always the closest so the other team gets the second try. There are all kinds of philosophies on rolling technique. Some try to bounce and roll like a bowling ball, I prefer to try a backspin roll... which doesn’t really roll the ball backwards from the bounce it just slows the roll down. If you put tons of spin then, yeah, on a sandy court it will plop down pretty much.
But when there are already 6 balls crowding the field (sometimes they are spread out leaving plenty of room), things change. Some of the strategy is to try to block the other team, or if you already have one well placed ball to try to edge out the opponents ball, in which case you can either try to place it between, or nudge their ball out of the way just a hair (or both). But if you are down 2 or 3 balls then bomb the hell out of the pile and move the little ball!
In my 20’s we parties with a group of French people. We’re all still close friends but everyone has moved to different parts of the country. But for a decade there it was eat, drink tons of wine, and play Petanque!
Don’t forget Roman candles
This is more or less what we played with. My set is all silver but with different patterns. Some have 4 silver color and 4 brass color. All of ours is in a nicer case though :-)
I gather all the tree branches and twigs that fall, and use them for kindling.
Ah! They tell them apart by the single and double lines? And shiny...too. For me, that only solidifies it. If they were simply crude cast iron balls, it wouldn’t have the same effect.
But because they are shiny, it makes them seem like a better projectile to roll.
It is! And I have plenty of that kind of firewood in my backyard.
Not a lot of room for cornhole, or croquet.
My backyard games are more of the nature gazing type. We do have two trees that we hang a hammock from, and when the season is just right, it’s an amazingly beautiful thing to watch watch the fireflies in the woods. On a clear night, it looks like the stars fall out of the sky, and become living twinklers that surround us as we watch.
In other seasons, we watch as foxes, possums, raccoons, and deer stroll by.
I like my kind of backyard games. :)
Maybe not everyone’s cup of tea, but they suit me just fine.
Once my family made a trip to the south in early summer and stopped at one of those giant fireworks outlets (Fireworks were illegal in PA). We brough back a trunkload. Made some candy money selling some of them, but we kept the bottle rockets and had an epic bottle rocket war that involved the whole street (until the cops came and broke it up).
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