Indoor Ball/Cabbage Ball – It’s a New Orleans Thing

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Shopping for an Indoor Ball

For weeks I had shopped the sporting goods and department stores before I realized that just as pickle meat, coffee and chicory, and fresh shrimp are not to be found in Kalispell, neither was a cabbage ball.

I took my quest to Google.

Surely the omnipotent search engine would find me an indoor ball. I never considered this would be anything but a simple task, but lo and behold, Google was befuddled.  When I asked Amazon the mega superstore to find an indoor ball or cabbage ball, they thought I was either looking for a Nerf toy or a vegetable. Duh!

Determined, I continued to expand my search with terms such as New Orleans and arrived at a site called Cabbage Ball.org. I began reading their home page and it was a real eye opener to discover that the sport of indoor ball is a New Orleans thing, much the same as Mardi Gras or creole cooking.

No wonder I couldn’t find any cabbage balls around here. Finding an indoor ball in Kalispell, Montana would be like trying to find soft-shelled crabs or French Market do-nuts!

So – you may be asking – if it isn’t a game played indoors and it isn’t a stuffed cabbage, what is indoor ball?

 Indoor Ball also known as Cabbage Ball

• The game of indoor ball, also known as cabbage ball, is a popular sport played in the New Orleans area.

• The game is played with a bat and bases, just the same as baseball and softball.

• Unlike baseball and softball, indoor/cabbage ball is played with a  (17″ circumference) ball which looks like a softball, only larger and softer.

• No glove is required, making it a safe and fun sport for kids of all ages.