Plunger Tennis Billards

Imagine a larger than life pool table. 

Sixteen plus feet long, eight plus feet wide. 

Imagine standing on that pool table playing pool with a plunger like a croquet mallet. 

Here's the set up:

Stand your tables on their sides to make a wall, leave gaps where the pockets go, you'll need a standard old style plunger, 16 tennis balls, preferable 7 of two different colors, an 8 ball and a cue ball. When explaining the game, be sure to swing the plunger like a croquet mallet, specifically say they must hit the cue ball with it for play. This leaves the door open for using it as a pool stick, but it may take a few games before someone decides to do it. 

Yes, you can play in teams. This is harder than it looks because tennis balls want to bounce. So I recommend either "dead" ones from a racquet club or stab all the tennis balls several times to take the bounce out. Don't stab yourself. You could borrow a labrador to chew all the balls ahead of time as well. 

Team Survivor: All Sports Sports Battle!

Here's your inspiration!

Ultimate Mini Game Battle

Items needed:

• Arcade B-Ball Shoot
• B-Ball Hoops
• B-Balls
• Can Jam
• Inflator/sparebattery
• Kidz Hoop
• Soccer Balls
• 55 gallon trash can
• beach ball
• frisbee
• hula hoops
• Gold paint
• plastic b-ball for trophy
• Nerf footballs
• game spinner
• spinner label: can jam, layup, trash, arcade, Kiddie Shoot, frisbee, table, free throws

Challenges

1. Layups - 12 throws
2. Freethrows - 12 throws
3. Frisbee - frisbee bounce pass to hula hoop - 5 shots each worth 2 points
4. Trash - beach ball in trash can - 4 shots worth 3 points
5. CanJam - 4 shots worth 3 points
6. Kidz Hoop - nerf and kids hoop - 6 shots worth 2 each 
7. Arcade - shoot at arcade - 12 throws
8. Tabletop - Toy hoops - 4 shots worth 3 points each

Round 1

1 Spin the wheel to select the challenge - you have to be in the top 4 scores to move on

Round 2 

Top 4 scoring teams each get 4 shots on regulation hoop with:

• soccer ball- must be kicked
• tennis ball and racket - must serve with racket
• football - throw
• volleyball - bump or serve to shoot

And  shot on Kidz hoop: 

• ping pong ball and paddle on can - must serve with paddle

Sudden Death Overtime

• Lacrosse stick and ball must be shot by stick

Somewhere, Nowhere, Everywhere - I'm going

We're going places with this game. you need three lines on the ground. One is somewhere, one is nowhere and one is everywhere. Use your comedian to introduce this. Last one to the correct line is out. Point in the wrong direction, point in the right direction, point to nothing in particular, call out "Elsewhere" if they move off the line they are out. You can up the difficulty with adding more lines, Elsewhere, Over-there, etc.

You can also make this a theme game, if you're in the Navy, it's the bow, midship, aft, stern, etc. If you're piratey, then it's the bow, forecastle, stern, poop deck, etc. If it's baseball, then it might be dugout, pitcher's mound, outfield etc.

Drag Race Life Size Board Game

 What could be more exciting than a drag racing?

• Name of the Game: Drag Racing Life Size Board Game

• Minimum Players: 2       Maximum: 10

• Minimum Age: 5

Set up a course of 2 parallel tracks. I use 12x12 inch plywood squares. I have about 100 of these in the 4 AWANA colors. You need 13 spaces on each track. You'll need 4 sided die. You'll also need a few labels on some of those squares.

• Blow the Engine, Loose a Turn
• Loose a Wheel, Loose a Turn
• False Start

Flip the die and play like a typical board game, the player is the marker. They roll the 4 sided die and move from 1 - 4 spaces at a time. If it's going too fast, they have to roll the exact number to finish the board. 

Equalizer:

Here's what happens to equalize the athletic from the inept: it's pretty much a 3 sided pyramidal die, it acts funny. 

Over the top tips: 

Get some drag racing sound clips.

Get a play by play commentator.

Get a Christmas Tree from a strip to start the game. This can be a great addition to a pine wood derby race night as well. Red, Yellow, Green, Go!

Game Equipment

 You can never have enough game equipment. I love bargains, I bought plenty of things at the dollar store. Here's a list of things that come in handy.

• 12 inch x 12 inch squares - A very helpful retired church member cut these out of plywood and painted them red, blue, yellow, and green. I think he used 4 sheets. He also made a wheeled dolly to move them around. 
• plungers
• dodge balls
• nerf balls
• tennis balls - got dozens from a tennis club for free.
• ladder ball - built out of PVC before you could buy the game
• corn hole
• bean bags in 4 colors
• cones
• nerf soccer balls, footballs
• frisbees
• giant foam dice
• 4 color spinner
• putters
• hula hoops
• parachute
• beachballs

This is by no means an exhaustive list. This is a good start to having the resources to play the games with. I really try to make sure I can use something for more than just one game. Chalk it up to Yankee Frugality.

Frisbee Baseball!

 Baseball is upon us!

• Name of the Game: Frisbee Baseball

• Minimum Players: 4

• Minimum Age: 7

Set up a baseball diamond. You can use paper or frisbees or regular bases, cones, whatever you've got. Now with painter's tape, divide the field up. This game will scale to just about any large room, gym, outdoor area you may have. So divide up the field and have paper labels, for all the plays in baseball:

• Home Run!
• Triple
• Double
• Single
• Foul
• Strike
• Pop Fly Out
• Double Play
• Triple Play

These labels go into strategic locations. There should be a single for the least athletic kid to hit right in front of home plate, and the home run is right before the back wall, the wall being out, and the zone in front of the home run being a pop fly out. I always make ceilings and walls out. Save the building. 

Play is like a standard baseball, but you throw a frisbee. Where it lands you get that play. Single? Take first base. Double? Take second. If the frisbee lands on a line, it's the lesser score or the worst out. 

Scoring is same as regular game, 3 outs per team, switch sides, there are no fielders, just someone to return the frisbee to home plate for the next batter. Depending on the size of the teams, you should be able to go a couple innings in 20 minutes or so. If you have 4 players let them all be on the same team and just play pick up or against you. 

Equalizer:

Here's what happens to equalize the athletic from the inept: the throwers will go for the triples and home runs and usually get outs. The non confidents will put that frisbee on the safe single right in front of home plate. Sometimes a team will figure out to just go for all singles and rack up a score. In that case you may have to call a game. 

Over the top tips: 

Get some baseball sound clips.

Get a play by play commentator.

Seventh inning stretch.