https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/corkball-the-mutant-baseball-game-thats-a-st-louis-tradition/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+theartofmanliness+%28The+Art+of+Manliness%29

In: Health & Sports, Sports
Brett and Kate McKay • May 6, 2021
Corkball: The Mutant Baseball Game That’s a St. Louis Tradition
 
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Welcome to corkball: a mutant baseball game hailing from the streets of St. Louis, that you just might want to import to your own neighborhood. 

The Origins of Corkball

In the 1840s, Irish and German immigrants came pouring into St. Louis. Many of the latter brought beer recipes from Deutschland and opened breweries that mass-produced German lagers for the country’s growing population. While brewing companies like Anheuser-Busch were innovating beer-making with pasteurization and refrigeration, the employees at these breweries were making innovations to American baseball and created a version of the game that allowed them to play with a limited number of players, in a limited space, without the usual regulation equipment. 

Legend has it that corkball got its start in an east St. Louis tavern sometime around 1900. Some bored, slightly drunk dude popped the cork bung off a beer barrel and wrapped some tape around it. He then tossed it to a drinking buddy who tried to hit it with a broomstick. 

Boom!

Corkball was born. 

The most significant difference between corkball and baseball was that corkball had no runners, so there were no bases. Because there were no bases or runners, men didn’t need a big space or many players to play corkball. They could technically get a corkball game going with just four total — two to a team. 

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Ever hear of “cork ball”? I hadn’t.

Sounds like it could be a real winner.

Except for calling balls and strikes.

That injects subjective judgments.

Have to think about how to eliminate that.

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