Getting the idea of Junkyard Sports to the masses, especially to the family masses, seems to be proceeding apace - a very slow pace, but proceeding nevertheless. The first big break was the article in Famly Fun Magazine. The next, and most recent, is in a publication called Kid Scoop.
It's an issue devoted to junk. And you can download your very own copy. Your very own, full-page, color copy, or, should you desire to print it out and distribute it to the many, your similarly very own, classroom-ready 6-page, black-and-white copy.
Kid Scoop, should you wonder, is distributed internationally, and appears in 350 newspapers around the world.
"The Iditarod is the famous long-distance race in which yelping dogs tow a sled across Alaska. Our Chiditarod is pretty much the same thing, except that instead of dogs, it's people, instead of sleds, it's shopping carts, and instead of Alaska, it's Chicago."
"At the start of the game each player stands facing the other a few yards apart. Both have placed their feet into plastic buckets, one on each foot. For children playing the game a standard bucket is usually perfect – for adult players you may need to search a garden centre for larger specimens. Players hold in their hands an equal number of small balls. The aim of the game is to throw and get as many balls as possible into either of your opponents buckets whilst avoiding too many in your own."
It was at the CPRS 2008, Long Beach conference . And I was facilitating a bit of Tabletop Olympics amongst 5 tables of people who run parks and games all throughout California.
Many most remarkable Tabletop Olympics moments were shared. Many, many events of noteworthy notability and truly silly competitiveness. But there was this one table (I really like to learn your names if you were a tablemate) that happened to have, amongst its various shared personal treasures, some significant conference swag. Namely: a couple battery-operated hand-held fans, and some Lego pieces, and a fingerboard. And they put their stuff together to create a well, Tabletop Sailboard, I guess is what you'd call something made out of the fingerboard, a couple Lego pieces, a toothpick and a scrap of paper. And their Olympic Event was a hand-held-fan-powered Tabletop Sailboard event that proved to be at least as funny as it was demanding of Olympic-like concentration and skill.
Behold, therefore you beholder, the Tabletop Sailboard, as fuzzily photographed on the right. Whilst beholding below the slightly less fuzzy image of a Tabletop Sailor in action.
Now and forevermore embedded in the virtual bedrock of Tabletop Olympics History.
Fairy chess, explains the Wikipedian, "is a term in a chess problem which expands classical (also called orthodox) chess problems which are not direct mates. The term was introduced before the First World War. While selfmate dates from the Middle Age, helpmate was invented by Max Lange in the late 19th century. Thomas Dawson (1889-1951), pioneer of fairy chess, invented many fairy pieces and new conditions. He was also problem editor of The Fairy Chess Review (1930-1951)."
"On the other hand," comments the Funsmith, "Fairy Chess is an invitation to a cornucopious collection of what can only be called "Variant Chess Games," or, shall we say, more ways to play chess than you could shake a pawn at."
"Fairy Chess," continues the Funsmith, eyes akimbo with conceptual glee, "is, in fact, the chessular embodiment of Junkyard Sports, New Games and every one of those noblly playful efforts to return the power of play to the hands, hearts and minds of the players."
"This past week, in the absence of soccer practice, my young men have invented a new game. You will chuckle at the name. It's Chunky Baseball. It even has a theme song. I don't know why it got that name or what the rules are. When I've asked for an explanation, they just sort of sigh as if to say, 'Well, Mommy, it's really complicated and you just have to go out and play it to understand it.' So, I'll be content to remain in the dark about the intricacies of this new game. But what I love is that my boys, together with a neighbor, friends from church, a homeschool buddy, a cousin, and others, have spent every gorgeous fall afternoon this week OUTSIDE!!!! Being creative, exercising, having fun. They come in with bright eyes and rosy faces. We made a trip to the store to buy a bigger, brightly colored ball with which to play the game, since the small red rubber ball they'd been using kept getting lost in the thick stand of monkey grass that covers our neighbor's entire front yard.
"I have heard that this generation of kids doesn't know how to play games, doesn't get enough exercise, sits in front of the computer or the TV and lets their brains turn to mush. Maybe if there was a Chunky Baseball game going on down the street, those kids would forget about Halo or whatever else it is they play, say goodbye to their facebook buddies, and head outside. Maybe playing Chunky Baseball would revive their mushy brains and strengthen their atrophying muscles. Maybe they'd find out that being outside, creating a game is way more fun than staying inside playing simulated tennis on a Wii. I don't know. I'm just glad that around here real kids are playing real games in the real outdoors. It seems that there is no end to their creativity when it comes to games."
Please, please share this with those people who want to teach kids how to play. Use it to remind them that kids already know how to play - physically, socially, intellectually. The only things they need from us, pretty much, are: 1) to be given the space to play in, and 2) the time to be left alone, and maybe 3) something fun to play with.
Socetball and Water Baseball - more lessons in the art of Junkyard Sports
I googled across an old Atari forum where people were having a discussion about "made up" games. Here's one example:
"We made one called socetball where you take a soccer ball and a lowered basketball hoop. You kick get one minute to kick the ball, and hit the backboard for one point and make it in for two. You do this with two people and play for two rounds. In the first one will kick and another will get the ball. And in the next round the person who kicked will get the ball and vice versa. Whoever has the most points at the end of the two rounds wins. It was a very fun game but we don't play it a lot anymore."
I liked especially the last line: "It was a very fun game but we don't play it alot anymore" - because it reveals yet one more characteristic of Junkyard Sports. You invent. You play it a few times until the game gets very fun. And then you let it go and invent the next one. That's part of the freedom and the message. The obligation is not to the game, but to the fun of making it fun.
And then there's Water Handball:
"i made up 1 wih a friend at a swimming pool its called water handball...l u use a nerf sort of ball that is round and as small as a baseball or softball and u play as if u wer playing baseball but wen u pitch u must skip the ball acroos the water... there is no bat u must use ur hand to hit the ball...then u must swim base to base..u play 2 outs and u can either peg the runner (throw the ball at the runner and if u hit them off the base they're out) or u can tag the runner...u play 2 outs and first 1 to 21 wins....u can also make an imaginary home run fence...it is also a great 1 vs 1 game.."
"...skip the ball across the water." You can't be having a conversation about how to play baseball in a swimming pool and wind-up with something like ball-skipping. That's one of the fundamental truths of Junkyard Sports-making. The gameworthy delights of things like pitching-by-ball-skipping are not derived by speculation or explored by theorizing. Only by playing.
"From the outset of last year, my roommate (who I also totally dominate in all physical competition) hung his hats on tacks from the storage loft over the windows. I followed his lead, and pretty soon we had a full mantle of dangling headwear. We also had a small foam ball, and, after a few weeks, a whole set of rules printed and hanging on the wall. One person knelt near the door and threw the ball at the hats. Hitting a hat was one point, knocking it down was three, and there were all sorts of other modifiers for caught balls, multiple knocked-down hats, and even defensive rules for the other players. We also invented a game (more of a free-for-all, actually) that involved clearing all furniture out of the living room, turning the lights off, gathering pretty much every ball we had in the room, and throwing them at or tackling anyone else who was playing. This game could get a little violent, and was made doubly scary in my room where, again, one of my roommates was significantly more of a 'physical specimen' than the rest of us. That said, it was great fun and I’d recommend it to anyone so dedicated to indoor recreation."
It was at the 
Behold, therefore you beholder, the Tabletop Sailboard, as fuzzily photographed on the right. Whilst beholding below the slightly less fuzzy image of a Tabletop Sailor in action.
