Way Back Machine - baseball 'games'

In the spirit of baseball season and the year the Tigers are having, we take a ride in the way back machine to the 1970/80's when kids like myself improvised for baseball practice when little league was down with games such as:

pickle

The game was pretty simple, and quite stupid looking back on it. You placed two bases apart about the distance between the bases in baseball. Two people have their mitts on and guard each base while throwing the ball to each other. With this going on, one person runs between the bases attempting to get to one of the bases without being tagged. If he made it, I can't remember if we switched places or that person stayed and was king until called out. 

There was no umpire to call safe or out so debates were also part of the game as I recall. "I touched your shirt!!" "You did not!!!" 

I don't recall these games lasting long.

500

A simple game of one guy hitting baseballs to a flock of kids and every man for himself in catching one of the hit balls and accumulating points. The first to 500 wins. I'm going off of memory so probably off in some regard but recall fly balls being 100, line drives 200 and grounders 50. If you dropped the ball, points were deducted accordingly. 

As with pickle, there was no umpire so debates/rationalization happened. "It didn't touch my mitt so that is not a dropped ball!!"  "No way was that a line drive!!!"

1/2 field/pitcher's mitt out/ghost runners

Sometimes a combination when you don't have enough people for a full field of players, you designate second base as the median line and the batter can only hit to one side of the field or the other. Instead of a first baseman, fielders throw to the pitcher before the batter reaches first base for the out. If you're having a good inning, you get to use the famous "ghost" runner and bat again. 

Thankful cell phones didn't exist during this time.

Trail Head