Wait, wallball is a regional thing? My mental image of an elementary school recess yard has just changed wildly. What about 4 square?

I’m fairly sure that “wallball” played in most elementary schools around the US is a different game than what is being referred to here. Growing up in New England, what we called wallball involved throwing a tennis ball against a wall and attempting to catch it before someone else, while the NYC handball/wallball is closer to racquetball, but played outside against a (usually) freestanding concrete wall with palms used instead of racquets.

We played both handball and 4 square in southern california, though I don't recall it being a thing at the school I attended in the midwest, nor do I remember having played it in virginia.

grew up in VA, and recall 4 square and handball

To give a personal account, I grew up in Utah and students at the public schools which I attended knew both wallball and 4 square.

I've only ever seen Handball/Wallball in NYC. This is honestly the first time I've ever heard of four square.

Interesting! The mention of California made me think that was likely but Florida had the opposite effect. In terms of culture trends, Utah seems to lag behind California by 2-3 years (from my lay-observations) but I’m not sure about Florida. The geographical distance had me thinking it was a more-likely national phenomenon.

To continue with Kid's games, we used to play 'JailBreak' a kind of tag/capture the flag. you'd try to get your fellows, who were trapped out of jail, if you sneaked up and tagged them with your hand without getting tagged and captured. We played it in the evening sometimes. That was in suburban NJ near Philadelphia.

Yeah, that reminds me of part of how I played capture the flag as a kid, rather than its own game. One could be “caught” (tagged) and jailed if they were on the opposing side looking for the flag and they had to be tagged by a teammate while in jail to escape (still free game until you’re on the friendly side of the line).

I grew up in Denver, and we had handball courts in some of the city parks. It seemed to be super popular with central and south Americans. The tennis courts were super popular with African immigrants, mostly Nigerians.

Don't know if they're still there, or if they have been turned into a pickleball court like every other place on earth.

Ah so pickleball is spreading like crazy in CO too? I have a todo to play it just so I can see what the fuss is about.

I'm originally from near Philadelphia and we played a variant of Handball where we'd bounce a racket ball off the ground onto the wall and then wait for it to hit the wall then back to the ground then the other would hit. It was sort of a made up version, very different from the hard ball straight at the wall with a glove that they play on the handball courts here in NYC.

This kind of sounds like "Chinese Handball" which is a variant I've played way back. Not sure why it was called that though.

Belgium plays a completely different game with the same name, also called Olympic handball.

Your form of handball is played in Ireland. The world championship location alternates between the USA, Canada, and Ireland. In Ireland, it's administered by the GAA, so is strictly amateur, while in North America it's a professional game.

I live in Phoenix and we have a lot of handball courts, but now that I’m thinking about it I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one in use.