Adam Allington's Corkball Story on KWMU
Click the player below to hear Adam Allington's story on corkball from our local NPR affiliate, KWMU (St. Louis Public Radio). Adam interviewed me a few months ago about corkball after I contacted him suggesting that they run a story on it. It always seems to me like the other, more hipper sports in town (you know, softball, kickball, roller derby, etc.) always get the press, but, Rene Knott's story on the game last year on Channel 5 aside, rarely ever does corkball ever get a chance to receive some prime-time exposure.
Adam wanted to do the feature on me and the River City Corkball Club, but I told him we hadn't started playing yet and that I was unsure if we'd even play at all this summer due to conflicting schedules and me spending extra time coaching my son's little-league baseball team. So I suggested he get in touch with one of the other local clubs and gave him contact info, and he chose Gateway.
I wanted to correct a couple of mistakes Alan made in his story regarding the sport's history. First being that, according to a June 2000 story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's "Everyday" section, corkball dates as far back as 1890, and that it was members of the St. Louis Browns (the American Association team that would later become the Cardinals of the National League)—not brewery workers—who legend says invented the game by taking cork beer barrell bungs and swatting them with broomsticks at Mueller's Saloon at Grand & Greer. In fact the earliest hand-stitched corkballs supposedly first appeared in the 1910s.
I was also a little disappointed that he didn't mention the other local clubs by name or the fact that there are still corkball fields at both Jefferson Barracks and Tower Grove parks. But all in all, it's a good, entertaining story and great exposure for the sport!
