A Spalding Hi-Bounce Ball, often called a Spaldeen (with the accent on the second syllable), is a small pink rubber ball, somewhat similar to a racquetball, supposedly made from the defective core of a tennis ball without the felt. It was the more expensive and more popular version of the Pensie Pinkie (made by the Penn tennis ball company). These balls are commonly used in street games developed in the mid-20th century, such as Chinese handball (a variation on American handball), stoop ball, hit-the-penny (involving trying to make a penny flip on a sidewalk), box ball, punchball, and stickball (a variation of baseball). Then of course there is wallball, another variation in the game becoming more and more popular.
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The term most likely arose from a New York City-accented pronunciation of Spalding, the sporting goods company that produced the balls. Across the Hudson River in Jersey City, New Jersey, the ball was referred to as a "high bouncer." It may also have originated with a mis-reading of A. G. Spalding's signature on the ball. The name has become so common that Spalding now uses it in marketing, and it is now a registered trademark.
Spaldeens were available from 1949 to 1979 to city kids. In urban areas sparse in grass, Spaldeens became integral to many street games due to their bounciness and light weight. Citing the declining popularity of stickball,[1] Spalding took the ball off the market in 1979, but it returned in 1999 to much fanfare.[2] The retail price in the mid-1960's in Jersey City was 29 cents.
Jonathan Lethem's 2003 book The Fortress of Solitude contains many references to the stoop ball game using a Spaldeen on the streets of 1970s Brooklyn.
Don DeLillo's novel Underworld, set in the Bronx in the 1950s, also contains references to the Spaldeen, although the ball is referred to in the lower-case.
In the television series Weeds, Shane's grandfather tells him that, "Real Estate always bounces back. It's like Spaldeens. You know what Spaldeens are? Well, they bounce..."
Since its return in 1999 Spaldeens have been manufactured in a variety of other colors other than pink. Some of them are black, blue, green, orange, purple, red, and yellow.