Rag Ball
Before baseball, there was rag ball
Just take a rag
Tie it in knots
You've got a 'ball'
Grab a stick....a broom stick is best
You've got a 'bat'
Put most anything flat out for 'bases'
You've got a 'ball diamond'
Most any back yard will do (rag balls don't go all that far)
Grab some neighborhood kids, you've got teams
Not enough kids?
The game of 'workup' comes into play
To first and back
No kids?
Got a dog?
Hit the rag ball, yer dog will bring it back
......or run off with it
Then the game of chase comes into play
Yeah, back in the day
before plastic balls and bats
There was rag ball
Let a kid use his mind, he'll come up with his own toys
Boredom never existed.....ever
'Play' was something you got to do
...after chores
We never had enough "big kids" (AKA 8 years old and up) to field a baseball team, never mind two teams. Our solution? The little ones got three chances to hit a pitched ball, then we'd put the ball on home plate and the team in the field backed up to the outfield, pitcher included. Catcher wasn't permitted to field a ball hit this way.
The little kid would take his/her best whack at the ball (they wanted it to go far!), then ran like hell.
Anyone on base was allowed to advance only as many bases as the little kid touched before the fielding team either tagged him out or stopped play by getting the ball to the catcher (who by then had moved to the pitcher's mound).
Since most in our group learned how to play starting with "ball on the plate" there was no shame for little kids to be doing it, more kids got to play, and it was the perfect way to learn the game. Win-win-win
The kids in my family and our neighbors devised numerous games that worked despite some kids not having bicycles, gloves, other equipment or even a lot of athletic ability. We learned early on that the worst kind of player was a poor sport, whether that meant a sore loser, a crybaby or a crowing winner. They were taunted and even worse, sent home. Home being chore-land, most kids didn't have to learn good sportsmanship lessons more than once.
I bemoan adult intervention into children's sports. Left on their own, children sort out fair, imaginative rules that work well for their playspace, their players' ages and skills, their equipment (anyone with a glove shared with the opposing team, no questions asked), and so forth. Unevenly skilled teams get re-chosen immediately.