This is the crown jewel of American urban sport culture. With only a broom handle, a rubber ball, a bunch of guys, and a street, you can engage in a full scale, bona fide, serious, respectable game similar in feel to classic baseball. And talk about a field. Fungo and slow-pitch were usually played in the street, with anywhere from 3 to 6 players on a side. Anything that lands on a roof is an automatic out.
Fungo styles are as unique as stickball players.
The basic style is to toss the ball up with one hand, hold the bat with the other. There's another really cool way to hit that few master. Instead of throwing the ball into the air, you just kind of roll it up off the bat, let it bounce, and whack it. Hard to clearly explain, harder to do, and it definitely required a bit of finesse. There are some old-time New York stickball legends like Willie Mays and Joe Pepitone.