Blazing July heat doesn't stop a real ball player.
Sportman's Corkball Club had no problem with it last Thursday as they met for regular season games at the Jefferson Barracks Corkball Fields. The St. Louis-made game of Corkball is described as a "love letter to baseball" and it's alive and well in 2022, nearly 120 years after its birth.
Corkball is an ode to baseball that started during the World's Fair in 1904, when Anheuser-Busch employees would take the cork of a barrel and wrap it in tape to play ball. Bars would install cages so the men could play after their shift. The city tradition is still kept alive -- though it's evolved a bit since its beginning days.
Gerald Brown, the President of the Sportsman's Corkball Club, said that even as team numbers fluctuate throughout the years, Corkball will always be around.
"We go through phases. I mean this club right now, we're thriving," he said. "We have nine teams of seven, so it's 63 guys strong. But there are some years when we're six teams and six guys on a team, so we we're down to 36."
Brown said that often people come in to the game because they know someone -- or they know someone who knows someone -- who plays.
"It just gets passed on, the torch, and hopefully the interest stays here," Brown said.
Corkballer Pepe Greco said that back in the day, Corkballers would have money games and leagues.
"My uncle and my dad played four or five times a week at these different bars," Greco said. "Once they got married and started having kids that kind of stopped. And then the oldest club in St. Louis is the Gateway Corkball Club, and they were established in 1920."
Now, Corkball looks a little different. While in the beginning, hitters were only given a single for every hit, today's game includes doubles, triples, and home runs. And the ball isn't a cork with tape, it's a miniature baseball -- about a third of size -- with white leather and red stitching.
Corkball is not the only bat and ball sport St. Louis has created. The city also lays claim to Fuzzball, Indian Ball, and even Bottlecaps.
Tune in to Total Information AM at 8:45 AM this week as KMOX bring the series, "St. Louis' Other Pastimes: An obsession that blossomed a bat and ball underworld."