h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This doesn't seem like the handball I've seen being played in the Olympics. Maybe some clarification in the title is needed.

Any and all suggestions are welcome!

Street handball?
Handball (not the Olympic version)?
Handball for Street Urchins?

This is an authentic description of American handball, gentle readers. This was my introduction to the great sport of handball way, way back in the 1970's. We played the game exactly as written here, with two variations on the basics:

1. We used small, pink rubber balls called "Spaldeens" (more commonly used in Stickball, another great game!) instead of the proper blue handballs. (Ball usage depends on neighborhood availability.)

2. We had a "foul rule" whenever the ball missed the wall and ended up somewhere on the school roof, in the street gutter or in the middle of the street due to a wild slam. He or she who lost the ball, had to go climb, fish or dodge oncoming traffic to get the ball back. The last person to hit the ball successfully against the wall got to serve again.

We were sure we invented this game ourselves when we were at school (UK). Strange...

It's entirely possible that bored British street-urchins invented the game around the time of the Industrial Revolution in England. I would think that it migrated to New York and then to the other urban centers in the USA in the 1850's and 1860's.

Speculation, only.

Speculation is good - that's what keeps the global economy alive

It's such an easy an obvious game I can imagine lots of schoolkids independantly coming up with the same idea. We played with a tennis ball. P.S Asley you do get everywhere don't you?

Born of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution, of course.