I remember when my friends and I would meet at my friend Kevin’s house a few doors away and we would flip baseball cards, against the outside wall, and it was a fun thing to do to try and win as many cards as you could! We would flip it, or play Tippises!

Sometimes I would win a lot and the next day lose most of them! I tried to get the Yankee cards the most as it was my favorite team, and I tried to get a Mickey Mantle card, Maybe if I was lucky a Whitey Ford card ,or even a card from the Brooklyn Dodgers from players like, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanellaor, Duke Syder would have been a jackpot!

Those were the only teams I was interested in winning, I didn’t follow the New York Giants at the time, but they did have great ball players at the time, like Willie Mays, Bobby Thomson, and more!

Rules are simple; from a standing position, the first player takes a card, holds it along his side and then, with a flip of the wrist, lets it drop to the floor. It lands, with the picture facing up (heads) or the stats facing up (tails). The second player then flips and tries to match the card. If they match (both heads or both tails), player #2 wins the cards, if they did not match, the cards goes to player #1.

Now there is no rule requiring only 1 card per round. In fact it used to be more common for 3-5 cards to be thrown by the first player and then matched by the same number of cards by his opponent. Players may choose to win or lose on an individual card basis (this throw is to match card #1, this throw for card #2, etc.) or the whole pot (you have 4 heads and 1 tail, if I repeat that configuration, I get all the cards, if I throw something else like 3 heads and 2 tails, you win all). Players alternate who throws the first card and who matches.

Here is another game that requires a subtle touch. Anywhere from two to five or so contestants can play at a time. In this game, the object is to get your card closer to the wall than any of your opponents. In principle, it has some similarities to shuffleboard, bocci or horseshoes in that placement is key and you can knock off your opponent’s throw.

Players decide how many cards will be used per round and mark a line a reasonable distance from the wall (something like 6-12 feet). Standing behind the line, the first player tosses his group of cards (one at a time), towards the wall. The next player then goes and tosses her cards, then the next player, etc.

Ideally, you might get a card so close that it is actually leaning up against the wall. Of course, if your opponent is good and goes after you, he/she can knock it down and potentially land even closer. The player whose card is closest to the wall wins all cards tossed during that round.

It was one of the many things we did back then in the 1950’s, I wish I still had some of those cards today!