Corkball and Fuzzball ⚾️ 🎾🔥
Updated: Dec 20, 2024
In St. Louis, the residents play a couple of games unique to the St. Louis area: corkball and fuzzball. While I have no connection to St. Louis beyond having dated a young woman from St. Louis, having rode through St. Louis one rainy night/early morning in 2001, and having been offered a fitness/sports performance coaching job at a training center in St. Louis in 2013, I have heard of these games and I know a little about these games and their histories.
In my life I have played Wiffleball games, pickup baseball games, and I have played baseball games on a schoolyard with a rubber baseball that had to be replaced when the rubber baseball was sufficiently damaged or lost to a rooftop or a storm drain. But I haven't played corkball or fuzzball, although I do recall that I have played baseball with a tennis ball in lieu of a baseball.
I want to give corkball a try. The idea of hitting a miniature baseball with a scaled-down baseball bat and not having to do a lot of running sounds like a lot of fun, particularly to someone with 53 year-old legs. In fact, it sounds like a great game to close out a spring or summer day with friends and/or family members after getting home from work. Of course, I currently drive nights and my "workday" typically ends when others are going to work or school or when others are already at work or school. In any case it sounds like a really fun pastime, particularly for those people that have enjoyed playing baseball or softball.
If you are interested in learning more, check out a great article and accompanying video on the subject via the first link below. And if you are interested in giving corkball a try, you can buy the corkballs, corkball bats, corkball catcher's masks (closer-spaced wiring to protect you from the smaller ball), and "official" rules from Markwork (see second link below). Alternately, you could acquire a broomstick, a couple of tennis balls, and maybe a lighter. Then you can give fuzzball a try.
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