Corkball, A St. Louis Institution

Written by Pat's Papers | Wednesday, 18 August 2010 10:09 AM

I’ve never heard of Corkball and apparently that’s because I’m not from St. Louis. The Post-Dispatch says the game, which is sometimes described as “mini-baseball,” was started by brewery workers looking for distraction back in the 1890s. It caught on in other parts of the country as servicemen introduced the game to their friends. It’s remained popular, in part because there are no bases to run around. The ‘ball’ in corkball is two inches in diameter. Players try to strike it with a 1.5 inch-wide bat.

Markwort is the official maker of corkballs. Their slogan? “It’s small enough to make a grown man cry.”

More about Corkball from Wikipedia

St. Louis Corkball League

The video is a little shoddy, but it’s really hard to find examples of the game being played:

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