At my junior high school, these were sometimes used in dodgeball. I was not a small kid, but there were some eight graders who were much bigger. It stung if one of those guys got you squarely with the ball.

I greatly admired a tee shirt I saw a few years ago, saying something like "Dodgeball: America's Version of Stoning."

I should add that this would have been at the end of the 1960s.