Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium

by Jessie H. Bancroft

Each guard, as he becomes thrower, throws only to the corner on his side of the field. For instance, the guards bearing odd numbers being on the right side of the field, when player Number One throws from the center base, he will throw to the corner man on the right. Similarly, when player Number Two takes his turn at the throwing base, he will throw to the corner goal on the left-hand side of the field, as his party of guards are stationed at the left-hand side.

RULES AND POINTS OF PLAY.—The game opens with guard Number One in the center base, ready to throw the ball to the corner. Each thrower has but one throw at a turn, whether it be successful or not. Immediately that a thrower has tossed the ball, he steps back to his place among the guards, and the guard bearing the next number steps into the throwing base. The players must keep their own watch for turns to do this, and each should therefore observe at the opening of the game which guard bears the number next before his. This will be a player in the opposite division of guards of his team, as the odd numbers are guarding one corner and the even numbers another.

When each player of a team has thrown from a center base, the numbers begin over again in regular rotation. Thus, if Number Sixteen be the last thrower, Number One follows him.

Whoever catches a ball thrown to a corner, whether it be the corner goal keeper or one of the guards surrounding him, throws the ball immediately back to the center base, supposedly to the next player, who should have stepped at once to the base when the previous thrower left it. Should this next player not have reached the center base in time to catch the ball, he picks up the ball and throws it to the proper goal keeper; but it behooves a player to be at the center base in time to catch a ball returned from a corner, because every such catch scores.

A ball caught on the center base is, of course, a return ball from the corner to which a predecessor threw it, and must be a fair throw, whether sent by one of the opponents' guards or his own goal keeper.

It may make clearer the rotation of the play to illustrate as follows: The game opens with Number One ready on the center base belonging to his team. His group of guards, that is, those bearing the odd numbers, are guarding the corner behind him on the right-hand side of the field. He therefore throws the ball on the referee's signal to the corner goal keeper for his team at the opposite end of the ground on the right-hand side. Immediately that he has thrown the ball, he steps back among his group of guards bearing the odd numbers, and Number Two of his team, who belongs to the group of guards on the left-hand side of the field, steps forward at once to the center base. Meanwhile, the ball may have been caught by the goal keeper to whom it was thrown, or by one of the guards surrounding him. It is at once tossed back to the center base from which it came, and Number Two guard should be there to catch it.

Number Two then throws the ball to the goal keeper for his team on the left-hand side of the ground. Whoever catches it at once throws it back to the same throwing base, and Number Three should be there to receive it, Number Two having returned to the ranks of his guards. So the game goes on, the guards each taking a turn at the throwing base, and each throwing the ball to the corner goal keeper on his side of the field.

Meanwhile, the same sort of game is being played by the opposite team, two balls being in play at once, and each guard taking part in each game for each team, according as he is guard around an opponent's corner goal or a thrower from the center base to his own goal men.

Each goal keeper and thrower must keep one foot in his goal or base. It is thus permissible for a goal keeper to step out of his goal with one foot, or lean far out of the goal to catch the ball. Of course the best kind of a throw to a goal keeper is a high curved ball that will go over the heads of the guards and fall within his goal. No guard may step within the goal he guards.

Violation of the rules about overstepping territory constitutes a foul, and scores for the opposing team.