Has bocce ball ever been an Olympic sport? Maybe it should be! It started with the ancient Greeks, and came to southern Italy with them, where it has stuck fast. The French adopted it as boules–and could bocce be the distant ancestor of the bowling alley across town?

The Italian tradition of bocce is kept alive in St. Louis. Milo’s Bocce Garden is a tavern in The Hill, the Little Italy of St. Louis, which bills itself as the “sports center of The Hill” in neon lights. Milo’s installed bocce courts in the 1980s and maintains an active tournament schedule. But bocce was alive and well on the Hill long before that, as the following video reveals.