Backyard Games For Summer

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aving fun at the backyard barbecue can mean more than just stuffing your face with animal flesh and seeing who gets too drunk to be able to drive home. Even if you don’t have a pool there are plenty of fun games to play in the comfort of your own backyard. Here are our five favorites.

Beanbag  Toss may or may not have originated with Native Americans who threw pigs’ bladders with dried beans for sport. 

Ladder Golf : No one’s really sure where this “ball and ladder” game originated. Some speculate that it comes from the Wild West, where cowboys would throw live snakes at fences or branches. But the modern version is a tad more civilized. Players toss a “bola” (two golf balls tied together with cord) at a ladder-type thing and are awarded points based on which rung the balls land.  The top rung is 3 points, the middle is 2, and the bottom rung is 1. The game ends when a player gets exactly 21 points without going over.

Bean Bag Toss: Another game of mysterious origin, this Midwestern favorite is also known as Bags, Baggo, Corn Toss, or by the rather entendre-filled Corn Hole. The game may or may not have originated with Native Americans who threw pigs’ bladders with dried beans for sport. It’s your basic “put the ball in the hole” game, only the ball is a beanbag and the hole is at the far end of a wooden ramp. The game is divided into innings and each player throws four bags per turn. Scoring is based on whether the bag lands in the hole or on the board.

Tetherball: Anyone who’s seen Napoleon Dynamite has seen how graceful and elegant one looks playing this game, which involves a pole with a volleyball attached by a long rope. Two players hit the ball back and forth, each trying to hit it in such a way that the other player can’t hit it back. The object of the game is to wrap the rope all the way around the pole, and to look really cool doing it.

Bocce: This is a variation of boules, a game popular in Italy and France, where it is also known as pétanque. Played with eight large balls and one smaller ball (often called “the jack”), each team gets four balls and must “bowl” them toward the jack, which is placed at the opposite end of the court. The object is to get your balls closer to the jack than your opponent's balls get.

Croquet: Croquet may seem like the sport of snooty, stuck-up, rich folk, but that’s only because it is. The game is played with two stakes, mallets, balls, and wickets (metal arches through which the players must hit the ball using the mallets). The rules for setting up and playing the game are far too complicated to explain here. Besides, it’s much more fun to make up your own game. To make it extra fun, dress up like characters from Heathers and say things like, “Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast?”