He saw a sport on TV and brought it home

A stenciled sign on a West Virginia backroad warns drivers: "Slow Please, Irish Road Bowling Ahead." Up ahead, someone is heaving a 28-ounce iron ball underhand down the asphalt, trying to cover a course of up to 2.5 miles in the fewest throws. The game is centuries old in Ireland, where one theory traces it to cannonballs left by Oliver Cromwell's soldiers. It took root stateside largely because of David Powell, an environmental journalist who saw the sport on television and thought the state's country roads were made for it. He bought six bullets at a Cork hardware store in 1994 and taught himself from a Library of Congress book. The West Virginia club is now a nonprofit with about 50 dedicated members. Powell recalls a schoolteacher who pulled over to ask what was going on. "We said, 'Come on, get in the match,'" he says. The man bowled perfectly on his first try.