 Half-rubber was played by African-Americans in the streets in and around both Savannah, and Charleston during the Great Depression.Some young half-rubber players went on to play professional baseball for the Negro Leagues during segregation, claiming that they got to be good hitters because it was easy to hit a whole baseball with a thick bat after years of swinging at a half-ball with a skinny broomstick.Over several generations, half-rubber's popularity waxed and waned in South Carolina and Georgia, with resurgences occurring the 1940s and 1970s.