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{{short description|Sport or game that is played on city streets}}

[[File:Hopscotch de Cubanese.jpg|thumb|[[Hopscotch]]]]

A '''street game''' or '''street sport''' is a [[sport]] or [[game]] that is played on city [[street]]s rather than a prepared [[game field|field]].  Street games are usually simply play time activities for children in the most convenient venue.  Some street games have risen to the level of organized tournaments, such as [[stickball]].

When street games are based on organized sports, the rules are highly modified to fit the situation, i.e. manhole covers for bases with cars or buildings for foul lines in stickball. When balls are used in street games, [[Spaldeen]]s are often used.{{Citation needed|date=August 2020}}

== Street sports ==
Street sports are sports held in [[urban area|urban]] environments.  Street sports are an expression of the spontaneous, improvisational and creative origins of sport adapted by human ingenuity to the urban environment. In historical terms their origins are traceable to the very earliest evidence of sports in Greek and Roman civilisation.<ref name="Read">''Urbanization and the Evolution of the City''; Reader, J.; Vintage; (2005)</ref>  Street sports are a hybrid form of sport and reflect the adaptation of conventional sports to the cityscape.<ref name="Fouc"/>  Viewing the city through as a living, bustling, and thriving organism helps to cast light on the nature of that which is urban and to begin to home-in on particular [[Wiktionary:salient#Pronunciation|salient]] features of urban life.  It is only with the advent of this relatively modern perspective on the urban that it has become possible to speak in terms of street sports.<ref name="Read"/>  

[[Parkour]] artist Sebastien Foucan has defined the sport of [[Freerunning]] as a ‘physical art’.<ref name="Fouc">Foucan, S; ''Freerunning: Find Your Way''; Foucan, S.; Michael O'Mara Books Ltd.; (2008)</ref>  In the words of  Foucan, street sports are "...a philosophy concerned with the quest of personal and social realisation..."<ref name="Fouc"/>  A similar point of view can be found in the notion of the philosophy of urban solo-climbing expounded by [[Alain Robert]].  Likewise, the high-wire walker, [[Philippe Petit]], whose performance include walking between the [[World Trade Center (1973–2001)|World Trade Center]] towers in 1974, has described his 'interventions' on the urban environment as 'art crimes', suggesting their essence is creative and constitutes an expression—an interaction with the city.<ref>''To Reach the Clouds''; Petit, P.; Faber & Faber; (2002)</ref> 

==Examples of street games==
This is a list of games that are traditionally played by [[urban area|urban]] [[children]] in [[playgrounds]], [[parking lots]], and back streets. They are all games that may be played on a hard surface, like [[Asphalt concrete|asphalt]]. They are part of [[children's street culture]], and are notoriously hard to classify rigorously.<ref>Milberg, Alan (1976). ''Street Games'', p.202. McGraw-Hill. {{ISBN|9780070419155}}.</ref>

===Utilizing a rubber ball===
{{columns-list|colwidth=20em|
* [[American handball]]
* [[Backyard cricket]] (Gully cricket)
* [[Box baseball]]<ref name="Video">Levy, Matt (2010). ''New York Street Games''. PBS.</ref>
* [[Baseball5]]
* [[Butts Up]]
* [[Chinese handball]] (Ace-King-Queen)
* [[Four square]] (Boxball)
* [[Half-rubber]] or halfball
* [[Hit the stick]]<ref name="Video"/>
* [[Off the wall (game)|Off the wall]]<ref name="Video"/>
* [[One wall paddleball]]
* [[Patball]]
* [[Punchball]]
* [[Stickball]], an urban variant of [[baseball]]
* [[Stoop ball]]
* [[Streetball]] (street basketball) 
}}

===Other games===
{{columns-list|colwidth=25em|
* [[Buck buck]] (Johnny on a Pony)
* [[Clapping game]]s
* [[Double Dutch (jump rope)|Double Dutch]]
* [[Hopscotch]]
* [[Hurray (game)]]
* [[Marbles]]
* [[Red Rover]]
* [[Ringolevio]], a game with two teams that mixes elements of [[Tag (game)|tag]] with [[hide-and-seek]]
* [[Singing game]]
* [[Skipping rope]] or Skipping
* [[Skully (game)|Skully (a.k.a. skelly, bottlecaps)]], the "poor man's golf", played with bottlecaps
* [[Street football (association football)|Street football]]
* [[Street hockey]]
* [[String figure|String games]] ([[cat's cradle]])
* [[Variations of tag]]
** [[Atya-patya]]
** [[Kabaddi]]
** [[Kho-kho]]
** [[Kick the can]]
** [[Langdi]]
** [[Steal the Bacon]]
}}

==In popular culture==
* Street sports in the Middle East: ''The Kite Runner'' and ''[[The Kite Runner (film)|The Kite Runner]]'' (the film adaptation)<ref>Housseni, K.; 2003</ref>
* Highwire Walking: ''[[Man on Wire]]'', film documenting the background to Petit's high-wire walk between the WTC Towers.
* A 2010 PBS documentary, ''[[New York Street Games]]'', shows the best-known street games played in New York City in the twentieth century, as well as discussing the decline of those games in recent decades.<ref>{{cite video | people = Matt Levy (Director) & [[Hector Elizondo]] (Narrator)| access-date   = 14 Nov 2011| url = http://www.newyorkstreetgames.com/home.html| title = New York Street Games| medium = Motion picture| location = New York City| archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20111113235948/http://www.newyorkstreetgames.com/home.html| archive-date = 13 November 2011| url-status = dead| df = dmy-all}}</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|Games}}
* [[Children's game]]
* [[List of traditional children's games]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://www.streetplay.com/ StreetPlay.com]
* [http://www.urbanfreeflow.com/ Parkour examples]
* [http://www.braggingrightsmovie.com/ Playing stickball]

{{Street games}}
{{Types of games}}

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[[Category:Game terminology]]
[[Category:Street games| ]]