Sports in St. Louis yet can be played in a very small area because there is no base-running. Invented on the streets and alleys of St. Louis in the early 1900s, the game has leagues around the country, thanks to servicemen who introduced the game to their buddies during World War II and the Korean War. St. Louis was home to four prominent twentieth-century boxers: Sonny Liston, Henry Armstrong, and brothers Leon and Michael Spinks. The Spinkses are the only brothers to have captured the heavyweight boxing title. Leon's son Cory Spinks has also held a world title. The Gateway Cross Cup is an
Michael Spinks in Miami, Florida, and that same year captured the United States Olympic Trials Middleweight Championship by defeating Keith Broom in Cincinnati, Ohio. He went on to defeat the Soviet Union's Rufat Riskiev to win the Gold Medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Spinks finished with a 93-7 amateur record with 35 knockouts. With the Olympics behind him, Spinks returned to work at a chemical factory in St. Louis, "scrubbing floors and cleaning toilets," as one source tells it. He had no big contracts awaiting him and, while Michael appeared to experts to be the more promising