Boy Killed While Playing 500

Pretty much, yeah, though I don't think we ever played with a bat. Throwing a ball is obviously a lot safer than batting it, at least for the fielders. Sounds like someone got too close to the batter to get the ball, because even without a bat, we all played pretty far from the thrower.

 

we played with a football too -- and it was like a punt return with some folks preferring to hit people instead of going for the ball

 

Come to think of it, we might have tried it with a football a couple of times too. We tried with a frisbee, but y'know, just no.

 

That's how we played it... and it was a death scrum. Though the ball was dead if not caught on the first bounce.

 

We tried it once during a practice with my son's t-ball team this year but with the kids racing around looking up for balls and crashing into each other or falling down with other kids landing on top of them we figured it was just a tad too dangerous for this group.

 

seems like the greater danger for injury is from the scrum . I can't imagine who the other kids must feel . Just a heartbreaking story .

 

I'm guessing this kid was the pitcher and didn't get the glove up in time.

Our version was different, the batter got the points. It was 50 for a grounder through the infield, 75 for a fly ball nobody caught and 100 for a HR (we always played on a smaller field so you could crank them out). Negative 50 for a foul, -100 for a caught fly and -500 for a swinging strike. You got five pitches per at bat, first to 500 wins.

 

That is what I thought too once Moddy mentioned that there could be a pitcher.

 

In my neighborhood, we used to play a game called 900 and/or Zilch: You get a group of people at one end of a field or a yard or wherever, and one person on the other end, as the quarterback. The QB throws a football -- or a baseball, I suppose would work -- and calls a number in the air. When a person says a number, say 500, the pile goes after the ball and someone emerges with it, 500 points closer to the target total -- 900. The first one to 900 wins and becomes the QB. However, if zilch is yelled and someone catches it, they sit to the side for the next round.

And no one died from that game, at least not in my neighborhood.

 

Well, I started playing 500 about 50 years ago and as far as I know, it's always been a toss and hit game with kids in the outfield.

And I played it with my kids about 10 years ago so I'm not sure it's changed in 40 years.

It's about the only version of contact baseball that I know of.

I've looked at a couple of stories about this and none of them mentioned that the kids were playing 500.

http://www.acorn-online.com/news/publish/newcanaan/21242.shtml

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/851839.html

Maybe Boom has a link we don't know about.