Man of the Sand
Half-rubber tournament brings back memories
As indigenous to the low country as palmetto bugs and shagging on the beach, half-rubber is a game that resembles baseball but is played with half of a rubber ball and a broomstick. The game can be played anywhere, but everyone agrees the beach is best. (Italics?)
Nine years ago Brian Koster organized the first Folly Beach “Man of the Sand” Half-Rubber Tournament. A friend with an autistic child told him about Camp Good Times, the only camp in the low country for autistic children, and Koster decided to help. “It was a no-brainer,” he said, “Half-rubber is synonymous with Folly Beach. The tournament links this timeless low country tradition to a good cause.” There are other tournaments, but the Man of the Sand is widely acknowledged as the most popular and regularly raises $5,000 or more each year for Camp Good Times.
Half-rubber has been around the low country since the 1920s and while there are differences of opinion as to when and where it all started, everyone agrees the game is in a league of its own and nothing else is quite as challenging or more fun to play.
Now
Modern half-rubber teams consists of a pitcher, catcher and one or two fielders. It’s a game that demands intense concentration and excellent hand-to-eye coordination. The relationship between the pitcher and the catcher is the backbone of the team. A pitcher and catcher who have played together for a long time are hard to beat.
“It’s not easy to pitch half of a rubber ball,” said David Smith, who pitches for Old School, “but good pitchers can sling a ball side-armed and get that ball to do what they want. It whizzes through the air, twisting and spiraling its way to the batter, and man is it fast.”
The catcher snags those rockets bare handed (gloves are for sissies) and it’s not unusual to break a finger, but any catcher worth his jockstrap just tapes it to a good one and keeps on playing, according to Old School catcher Eddie Cornwell, who waved a few misshapen fingers in the air. Smith has been playing with Cornwell for 30 years and calls him “the best catcher I ever knew.”
Hitting half a ball with a broomstick is no small feat, either. With baseball, you swing at the ball. With half-rubber, you swing where you think the ball is going to be, according to Smith. A good pitcher can fool you most of the time, although experienced players eventually learn to read the ball. “I never could get interested in playing baseball,” Smith said. “It’s no challenge. How could you miss? You may as well put the ball on a tee.”
Then
Half-rubber conversations inevitably turn to whether the game was first played in Charleston or Savannah. “I don’t want that question ever answered,” said Koster. “Let it be the million dollar question that never gets answered. What matters are the challenge and the camaraderie.”
J. G. Braddock is 80 years old and has been playing half rubber since he was ten or twelve. “I don’t know where the game originated,” Braddock said. “It’s been around so long there is no one left alive to say with certainty where some genius first razored a rubber ball in half and swiped the handle off his mother’s broom.”
Braddock remembers half-rubber played in his native Jacksonville when he was six years old and in Savannah, where his family moved when he was ten. In 1941 he moved to Charleston and by 1945 he was playing half-rubber most very day between the ends of two apartment buildings in the Robert Mills Manor housing project. His most memorable game was in the early afternoon of August 15, 1945. As he was waiting his turn at bat, someone threw open an upstairs window and yelled “The Japs have surrendered” and the half-rubber players left a ball hanging in the air to join the crowd surging towards King Street to celebrate the end of the World War II.
Reverend Robert P. Dukes said he knows for a fact half-rubber was played in Charleston back in the 20’s. He learned to play in 1939 from his brother-in-law, who had been playing for 15 years. It was an easy pickup game because back then all you needed was a pitcher, catcher and two pieces of equipment. “I played my first game with a rubber ball cut in half that I bought at the Kress store on King Street and a handle cut from my mama’s broom.”
The rules have remained pretty much the same, according to Dukes. The hitters don’t run bases and their score is determined by how and how far they hit the ball. “Three strikes you’re out. Hit the ball on the ground, it’s a single. Hit it in the air across the street, it’s a home run.”
Braddock agreed with that. “Three strikes or 10 or 20 or even 100 didn’t count as long as the catcher missed the pitch and there were only three ways to make an out – a tip or fly caught by a fielder or a swing and miss caught by the catcher.”
Both men were lifeguards at Folly Beach in the late 40s and have fond memories of playing half-rubber on the beach. According to Braddock, the two most popular places were in front of Rainbow Corner, which he called the “shag capital of the world” and the old pavilion, site of the present Holiday Inn.
Braddock said when he was chief lifeguard for the Township of Folly Beach in 1950, the game was outlawed in front of the pavilion after several beachgoers “came dangerously close to being decapitated” by broom handles slung from sweaty hands, but games were in progress up and down the rest of the beach from daybreak to sunset.
Man of the Sand 2010
Now it’s three and four-man teams, fancy aluminum or laminated bats and pre-cut balls from sporting goods stores, but it’s still a game that gets the juices flowing and brings back memories (or aspirations) of youthful exuberance and stamina, sun and sweat and good friends out to have a good time. This year’s tournament was held on June 10 and 11 in front of the Folly Beach Holiday Inn. Koster says he doesn’t have a final figure yet but estimates that Man of the Sand 2010 raised approximately $7,000 for Camp Good Times. This year’s was organized by Koster, Stephen Slaughter, Wayne Turner, Jimmy Mazyck and Bruce Inabnett, who regularly raises the most money for Camp Good Times. This year’s winning team was The Capones -one Charlestonian and three players from Savannah.
The Capones might have taken home the trophy, but everyone was a winner. “Everyone walks away from the table happy,” Koster said. “We get to play half-rubber, drink cold beer, check out the girls in bikinis, and help the kids. That’s what it’s really all about. We do it for the kids.”
You can catch a game of half-rubber most Sundays from mid-April through October on Folly Beach in front of the Holiday Inn parking lot. (Italics)
