Butts Up or Wall Ball is a North American

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children's

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game originating in the 1950s or earlier.. It is slightly similar to the game Screen Ball, and began in the 1940s or 1950s as a penalty phase of various city street games. Butts Up is played with a ball (such as a

tennis ball A tennis ball is a small, hollow ball used in games of tennis and real tennis. Tennis balls are fluorescent yellow in Professional sports, professional competitions, but in Amateur sports, recreational play other colors are also used. Tennis bal ...

handball Handball (also known as team handball, European handball, Olympic handball or indoor handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of thr ...

, or

racquetball Racquetball is a racquet sport and a team sport played with a hollow rubber ball on an indoor or outdoor court. Joseph Sobek invented the modern sport of racquetball in 1950, adding a stringed racquet to paddleball in order to increase vel ...

) on a paved surface against a wall, with a variable number of participants—usually more than three and often likely to exceed ten. Butts Up tends to be played during recess, before or after school. . Popular in New England is another frequent variation of wall ball that usually differs a lot from the more widely known 'Butts Up'. Players determine the variations of the game prior to start of play. Some of the rules of the game very loosely resemble the rules of

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

and

Names

There are many alternate names for butts up, including "Butt Ball," "Fireball," and “Chunkus.”

Basic game

Players line up facing a wall, one of them throwing a

or similar-sized ball against it. If the thrower fails to catch the ball on its return, they must run and attempt to touch the wall - if another player can grab the ball and "hit them in the butt" with it before they reach the wall, the runner is out of the game until the next round. The game continues until two or three players remain.

References

*Bailey, Guy. ''The Ultimate Playground & Recess Game Book'' (Educators Press 2001)

Names

Basic game

See also

References

Further reading