Community Corner

'Stickball Hall Of Fame' Game Revives Brooklyn's Forgotten Sport

A weekend tournament and Park Slope filmmaker's movie will bring back the days when street-style baseball was "a way of life" in Brooklyn.

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — A simpler time when neighborhood status was determined by who could hit a ball the length of three sewers on a Brooklyn street will be brought back to life this weekend in Coney Island.

Or in other words, a time "When Broomsticks Were King."

For the fourth year, enthusiasts of one of Brooklyn's most time honored traditions will flock to MCU Park for the annual "Stickball Hall of Fame Game."

Find out what's happening in Brooklynwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The game will bring two stickball teams to battle it out as a short film, "When Broomsticks Were King," which honors the real-life memories of playing the "poor man's baseball" in Park Slope, plays on the jumbotron. It will kick off at 2 p.m. Sunday and lead up to a Brooklyn Cyclones game at 4 p.m.

The filmmaker and one of the game's organizers Jay Cusato said the yearly get-together is more than just a day for Brooklyn's former stickball greats to get together. It is also a chance to revive a tradition that is part of both the borough, and the city's, history.

Find out what's happening in Brooklynwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"We really feel like it's a dying thing in New York City," Cusato said. "It's part of growing up in New York City to play stickball one time in your life. We're all really excited to honor (the game)."

This year, the game will also honor one of its most prominent champions, who died last year, Ray Goffio. Cusato said that if it weren't for Goffio, the Stick Ball Hall of Fame game might not even exist.

Goffio was the one to introduce Cusato to the Brooklyn Cyclones, who then watched his film and loved the idea of bringing it their MCU Park, he said.

He is also one of several old-timer stickball players that Cusato features in "When Broomsticks Were King." The 27-minute "mockumentary," made in 2001, features real-life family and friends who grew up playing stickball in Park Slope.

The names of each of the family members are changed — in true Brooklyn fashion to nicknames like "Sal 'The Natural' Nunzio" or "Phil 'Flat Foot' Migillicuddy" — but all the memories are 100 percent real, including their love for the game, Cusato said.

"Stick balls in those days was a way of life for us," Hank Cusato, from the 10th Street team, says in the film. "In the morning we played, in the afternoon and the evening— until it was dark and we couldn’t see the ball no more. We loved it."

The crew remembers how stickball, played with a "spaldeen" and broom handle for a bat, brought the neighborhood's kids together.

They bond over everything from the 10th Street-versus-11th Street rivalry, their inability to understand the only Spanish speaking player on the team and local stickball celebrities like Pauley "The Legend" Ganuch — who even though he was "stunad" enough to repeat 10th grade, was the best player in the neighborhood.

Back then, winning a stickball game would mean the difference between getting 40 dates at school the next day or being the laughing stock of the neighborhood, like Bobby "Whiffey" Garrity, who "couldn't hit a beach ball with a tennis racket," players said.

And to them, stickball dying out in the borough is not only a lost pastime, but a lost sense of community.

"Nowadays these punks don't even know what a stickball bat is," one player says.

"But I'll tell you this," said another. "If kids started playing it again...Stickball could change the world."

Tickets for the game are available here.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here