St. Louis Washers Growing in Popularity

I’m not sure when the phenomenon of playing washers started in St. Louis. It certainly wasn’t around in my neighborhood when I was growing up. Now it’s being pegged as the “poor man’s horseshoes.” For those of you in other parts of the country that aren’t familiar with this popular St. Louis backyard game, it goes something like this: you get a cardboard box, (or if you want to get permanent and fancy, build one out of wood), then you secure a cup in the middle of the box. Sometimes a tin can or a piece of PVC pipe is used. Then you take turns trying to throw a metal washer into the cup. You score points by either getting it into the cup or nearest to the cup. If you are playing team washers, then it is best to have two boxes, and then square off just like in horseshoes.

When I was younger, we had a couple of other neighborhood/bar games. The older kids either played bottle caps or cork ball. Most everyone is familiar with cork ball; it’s where you try to hit a smaller version of a baseball with a thinner bat, or mop stick. Bottle caps is pretty much the same, but you use the crown cap from a bottle of beer or soda instead of the ball. In our neighborhood, it was harder to come by the regulation cork balls, so most of the time we used a rubber ball. They were cheap, (about 50 cents), and usually disintegrated into a spongy chunk after a few days of play. The younger kids played what we called “wall ball.” Using the same rubber ball, the idea was to draw an imaginary line on a brick wall. Then you bounce the ball off of the wall as hard as you could throw it and the other player had to catch it on one bounce. The ball had to stay above the imaginary line. Simple, but you could also “go long” and try to bounce it over your opponent’s head. It was risky business doing that because if he caught it on the fly, he could go “up to the wall” and trickle it or bounce it way back over your head. There was a certain amount of deception and strategy involved.

Now it seems that washers has gone from the backyard to the big time. It’s not just for St. Louis anymore, and is spreading out across the country. There is even an International Association of Washer Players. Their Web site at www.washers.org gives detailed information on the game, official rules, and upcoming tournaments across the country. There is even a Washers for Wellness foundation that puts on charity washer tournaments for pulmonary fibrosis research.

ProWashers sells plastic washer kits at Wal-Mart and local grocery stores. Several sporting goods stores like Denny Dennis also carry them. If you want something a little more fancy to impress your friends, Missouri Washer Works makes wooden sets right here in Missouri. They say that they can’t make enough to keep up with the demand.

A number of bars in the St. Louis area like Novak’s on Manchester and The Royal down on South Kingshighway, host washer tournaments on a regular basis. Local Classic Rock station, Khits96 hosts an annual washers tournament where over 300 teams pitch washers to win prizes and raise money for the Special Olympics.

It’s a shame that we didn’t have washers in our neighborhood; it’s really a fun game to barbeque pork steaks and drink beer by, and much safer than lawn darts. Of course, all of the washers were kept in jars in Uncle Bob’s garage, and woe unto the kid, (or adult), who made off with them.