These are the 2 most popular sports in America but yet i’ve never seen a group of friends or adults play them on the fields. however soccer and basketball you see people play mini games or full size games on the daily just driving by a park or at the gym. even volleyball seems more popular on the fields than football and baseball.
10 comments
I’ve seen pick-up football. It was not 11 vs 11 though.
Football? Sure. Happened all the time when I was a kid. I still see kids bringing a ball to a park and saying “let’s find some guys to chuck it around with.”
Baseball I don’t think I’ve ever seen, but I also know it’s much harder to find a free-to-use baseball field even at parks, those are usually chained off unlike basketball courts and football/soccer fields.
I have both seen and played pickup football, but it wasn’t 11v11.
Oftentimes, the “offense” in pickup football has only 1 QB, no linemen, and 5,000 receivers. Conversely, the “defense” has 5,000 cornerbacks to defend a pass play. I guess playing “no rush no run” and “one/two hand touch” football is more fun and entertaining than actual football rules and formations.
Baseball, on the other hand, is more difficult to setup than football because you need a bat, a ball, and four objects that define the bases. In football, you need only a football and makeshift lines. You could just hijack an actual baseball diamond though.
I feel it’s far less common than it was pre-internet saturation.
If you grew up any time before 2000s it was common for neighborhood kids to get together and play different sports, including football and baseball (if you had the equipment).
It might be as basic as 2v2 but we did it. Football is less popular with adults since they’re more concerned about injuring themselves. Baseball requires more people, more organization, more equipment.
Soccer, basketball, and volleyball feel easier to have pickup games.
I”ve been in a pick-up football game. 2 receptions for a first down, driveways are the end zones. And no punting because that’s for sissies.
Sure and touch football also. And impromptu frisbee and hackey sack. (More so in a park or on a campus, or beach, unless the person had a really large field or yard.)
Baseball would require a (properly marked, if adults) field. You can’t really play baseball in a backyard, unless it’s little kids and a nerf ball and bat maybe. Not sure grownups do impromptu baseball games. (Baseball also lasts way too long for a casual get together.)
Please no one nit pick my answer. If you disagree, that’s great, and deserves its own comment.
As a teenager I did both of these with friends regularly. Football would likely be two-hand touch unless it has snowed… Snow football was awesome.
We did weekend football. Whoever showed up played. If more than 20 then people were subbed out when hurt. It got so popular and a bit rough that an ambulance crew would sit at the field from 8 to 10pm
Soccer and basketball both require fewer people and less equipment. So it’s a lot easier to just have a couple friends go play 2v2 soccer or basketball than it is to get enough people together to play baseball or football.
i grew up near a free baseball diamond, kinda overgrown and run down but we used to go out there and hit balls on summer weekends as kids. not sure if it counts as a legit pickup game though we never had more than seven or eight kids. never seen adults there.