Fun with history

Ahh, spring. A time for new beginnings, budding flowers and, of course, baseball. \nFor a newcomer to the Midwest, not having Major League Baseball available in this state seems tantamount to Seattle without smelly hippies and Frasier Crane. \nThey say that baseball is America’s pastime. Furthermore, Indiana purports itself to be the “Crossroads of America.” For such a good ol’ slice of Americana, the Hoosier State seems awkwardly misplaced without a healthy steroid-injecting sport like baseball. Hoosiers, it seems, are content riding the coattails of other states’ teams, such as the Chicago White Sox, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Cincinnati Reds. Apparently there’s another team in Chicago, but no one really cares since Bears and Cubs are immune from winning championships.\nUnfortunately, baseball will forever play last fiddle to the Hoosier obsession with another sport. You’re probably thinking basketball. Wrong. How about football? Wrong again. All sports will forever be a forgotten dream compared to Indiana’s most beloved athletic contest: cornhole.\nJust saying the name makes me shimmer with frightened amusement. It’s amazing to watch frat boys and computer geeks alike become so infatuated with a game that takes as much skill as joining the Alabama Air National Guard. Despite its modern collegiate popularity, however, few people know the origins of this kegger favorite and how it came to command the attention of so many Hoosiers. Fortunately, I took an entire sociology class on the subject, which qualified me for a master’s degree in the discipline. Here’s a brief synopsis:\nIn 1492, just as Columbus was discovering how to effectively exploit natives, a group of Viking sailors made their way through the Great Lakes to the southern shore of Lake Michigan, near present day South Bend After building the University of Notre Dame, the Vikings pressed southward, destructing the land by planting corn wherever possible. Once reaching the site of modern day Indianapolis, the Nordic hooligans camped to wait out the impending winter blizzard. Ironically it was May, but Al Gore had yet to make up global warming, so such extreme cold was normal in spring. Such events would never happen today.\nWhile waiting out the weather, the Vikings – having an affinity for cheap watered-down beer and topless women – built the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, site of the famed Indy 500. \nAlthough they were duly entertained for three laps of the initial chariot race held at the speedway, eventually the entire civilization grew bored with watching fast moving objects go in circles for hours on end. \nTo prevent the populace from committing suicide, the Vikings came up with cornhole, which proved more entertaining than the races. \nDespite their best efforts to forever dismantle the pointless races, the absurd tradition persisted, thanks in large part to a man named Dale Earnhardt, who eventually become the most beloved man in the South, ahead of Jefferson Davis and David Duke. Along with the ascendancy of the racing, however, also came the popularity of cornhole. \nAnd that’s how cornhole – and NASCAR – unfortunately came to pass. Damn Vikings.