Brian Foster and the Summer 1989 Kickball Field That Was an Entire Street

Last updated on 12 Mar 2026

Brian Foster still remembers how a plain stretch of cracked asphalt could feel like the center of the universe in the summer of 1989—especially when a red rubber kickball was involved. It wasn’t a park or a real diamond. It was your street, your rules, your last excuse to stay out while the day slowly gave up.

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"Our entire street became the field every evening. Driveways were bases. The storm drain was home plate. Whenever a car came down the road, someone yelled “CAR!” and the whole game paused until it passed. The rules changed constantly depending on who was winning, but nobody minded. The goal wasn’t really the game — it was staying outside until the sun disappeared."

The Geography of a Kid-Made Ballpark

What makes Brian Foster’s memory land so hard is how specific the map of it is: driveways turned into bases, and that storm drain—ordinary, ugly, probably a little gross—getting promoted to home plate like it had always deserved the honor. You can almost feel how your eyes learned the street by heart, the way you learned exactly where the asphalt dipped or where the cracks would steal a bounce from the red rubber ball at the worst possible moment.

That ball matters, too. A red rubber kickball wasn’t precious; it was tough. It could take the scraping sound of a bad roll, the sting of a too-hard kick, the indignity of being briefly wedged near a curb. And in 1989, that was part of the deal: play wasn’t curated. It was whatever you could keep going until somebody’s mom called, or the sky finally made the decision for you.

“CAR!”—The Only Rule That Never Changed

A 1989 neighborhood kickball game paused as a car passes, with a red rubber ball and a storm drain home plate. — Summer 1989: the whole street paused for one car, then became a ballfield again.

Brian Foster remembers a neighborhood rhythm that doesn’t exist the same way now: the whole street belonging to kids until it didn’t. The shout—“CAR!”—wasn’t just a warning. It was a spell that froze everything mid-argument, mid-run, mid-celebration. For a few seconds you were all traffic controllers, stepping aside, watching the headlights or the chrome crawl through your kingdom like an intruder that had every right to be there.

And then it passed. The game snapped back into place. Somebody retrieved the ball, somebody dusted their hands on their shorts, and the street became yours again—like you’d never given it up.

Rules That Bent So the Night Could Keep Going

Brian Foster doesn’t pretend it was fair. The rules “changed constantly,” and that line holds a whole childhood’s worth of negotiations—the kind that sounded like justice in the moment and like comedy later. But what’s tender about it is that nobody minded, because fairness wasn’t the point. The point was keeping the group intact. Keeping the motion going. Keeping the evening alive.

Even the arguments were a kind of teamwork, because they meant everyone still cared enough to be there. You didn’t go inside over a bad call. You stayed. You adapted. You made a new rule that worked for the next five minutes, because the bigger win was simply not being done yet.

Summer 1989, Measured in Light

There’s a particular way the sun leaves in summer—the long fade that makes kids believe they can bargain with time. Brian Foster’s memory isn’t really about score or who kicked it the farthest. It’s about stretching daylight until it thinned out, about the moment you started losing the ball against the darkening street and still refused to quit.

That last line—“staying outside until the sun disappeared”—says everything. It’s the real home plate. It’s the finish line you couldn’t see but felt coming anyway. And when it finally arrived, it wasn’t a dramatic ending. It was just the quiet understanding that tomorrow you’d come back and rebuild the whole world again, starting with the storm drain and a red rubber ball.

Photos from the Memory