User:Drenner/Cob ball

Someone objects to an original "cob ball" entry because this is new knowledge from observation not library research. An exception to "no source" deletion is necessary for this entry. It should not be deleted. Just because there is no book or article on "cob ball" does not mean that the "folk" sport should not be written about in Wikipedia. Let it be edited by others, but it would be a dumb bureaucratic response to delete knew knowledge someone has collected to share through this wonderful web resource. Drenner (talk) 04:33, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Content copied from deleted article
Cob ball was an activity developed when corn cobs were abundant on farms and baseball was a popular sport. Corn cobs were left from corn-shelling when field corn was picked and stored in cribs for drying before the ears of cornwere run through a mechanical sheller to separate kernals from cobs. There may be regional versions of typical rules players agreed upon for each game. A pitchers mound near a cob pile would be approximately the regulation distance from a home plate. A bat would be made from a flat board obtained from wood piles in farm lots, from an inch to two inches in width and with a whittled handle to smooth edges for swinging. Two players would pitch or bat inning by inning with rules for which ground balls were outs and which were singles, rules for distance to distinguish line drive singles, doubles, triples, home runs, or flyball outs. Practice hitting cobs was thought to be helpful for improving hitting in baseball, since pitching cobs became a highly developed skill to take advantage of the shape for throwing curves and floaters and other deceptive pitches. Pitching cobs was thought to help would-be baseball pitchers develop their arms and wrist control, too. Rules for pitching generally permitted breaking longer cobs into whatever length served the particular spin to be put on the cob. Players often identified themselves as representing a favorite major league team, then established a batting order based on knowledge of each player on the team. The length of the game could be five, seven, or nine innings. How widespread this "folk" sport was in the United States is not known. This description of cob ball is based on the observation of many games on Iowa farms in the 1950s and 60s before harvesting directly by combining in the field and drying corn began to replace the use of corn cribs and corn shellers. Corn cobs are now rare on typical farms in the United States. Thus, this description of cob ball has been written in the past tense and is based on observation, not library sources, until additional information or amendments are contributed to the article.