Vintage Base Ball

[YankeeFan]

Heard this story on NPR yesterday:

The Red Sox square off against the Detroit Tigers at Fenway Park on Saturday in Game Six of the American League Championship Series. Forty miles north, another league is putting the finishing touches on its season.

This particular brand of baseball comes with a curious twist.

On the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in Newburyport, Mass., mud-speckled pigs forage for food in their pen, and feather-tousled chickens peck at each other in their coop.

There's also a ball game. The Lynn Live Oaks battle the Lowell Base Ball Nine in the final regular season game of the Essex Base Ball Organization.

Note "base ball" — the way they spelled it back in the 1860s. That's the way they play it here, too: This is a four-team league for enthusiasts of vintage baseball.

While the game is played to the 1865 rule book, this is no reenactment, says Brian Sheehy, who founded the league 12 years ago.

"We have guys who played in high school, college, even a couple guys who played in the minors," says Sheehy, a history teacher who plays for Lowell. "It's a lot different than modern baseball. You have to adjust the way you think."

http://n.pr/16nultr

Anyone ever seen or participated in a game/tournament like this?

Audio -- about 4 minutes -- to the story is at the link.

 

[Big Circus]

 

[LongTimeListener]

What do they do when their black friend wants to play?

 

[YankeeFan]

What do they do when their black friend wants to play?

Someone smarter than me will know better, but were African-Americans excluded from Base Ball in 1865?

The sport wasn't formally segregated until later, right?

 

[Versatile]

Nostalgia for things no one alive remembers. Great.

Don't forget to use a washing board and metal tub to launder your jersey.

 

[spikechiquet]

Yup...saw The Great Black Swamp Frogs at their home park two summers ago.

<img src="https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash2/262947_766975597997_3695354_n.jpg">

Some heavy lumber
<img src="https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/262557_766975847497_1511353_n.jpg">

The ump called the game from the side of the plate, like softball
<img src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/281987_766976052087_2172317_n.jpg">

Pitching is underhanded
<img src="https://scontent-b-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/250057_766975902387_4488776_n.jpg">

<img src="https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/282402_766976321547_3527098_n.jpg">

 

[PCLoadLetter]

What do they do when their black friend wants to play?

Someone smarter than me will know better, but were African-Americans excluded from Base Ball in 1865?

The sport wasn't formally segregated until later, right?

The first known African-American in the majors was Moses Fleetwood Walker, who played for a year in 1884. The unofficial exclusion of black players started in '88.

1865 predates Major League Baseball, though, so there probably wouldn't have been any type of exclusion specific to baseball at the time.

 

[Versatile]

Yup...saw The Great Black Swamp Frogs at their home park two summers ago.

<img src="https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash2/262947_766975597997_3695354_n.jpg">

Some heavy lumber
<img src="https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/262557_766975847497_1511353_n.jpg">

The ump called the game from the side of the plate, like softball
<img src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/281987_766976052087_2172317_n.jpg">

Pitching is underhanded
<img src="https://scontent-b-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/250057_766975902387_4488776_n.jpg">

<img src="https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/282402_766976321547_3527098_n.jpg">

Wasn't obesity in America something like 5 percent back then?

 

[dreunc1542]

I'm so glad this was the first post.

 

[Hank_Scorpio]

About once a month during the spring and summer, vintage teams will play at the old Tiger Stadium lot. There's actually a group that keeps the field in pretty good shape, mowing the grass, chalking and raking the field, even painting a big Olde English D on the grass.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

What do they do when their black friend wants to play?

Someone smarter than me will know better, but were African-Americans excluded from Base Ball in 1865?

The sport wasn't formally segregated until later, right?

Depends on what you mean by formally segregated. The early teams, like the Knickerbockers, were exclusive clubs and frequently were made up of players who shared an occupation. There were also teams that shared the same ethnicity, so you might have had Italian teams, Irish teams, German teams, etc. There were black players, who played on black teams, but informal town teams might have been integrated.

When Walker, George Stovey, and Frank Grant, among others, started integrating with pro teams, it was a pretty big deal, and they eventually were forced out.

 

[Versatile]

About once a month during the spring and summer, vintage teams will play at the old Tiger Stadium lot. There's actually a group that keeps the field in pretty good shape, mowing the grass, chalking and raking the field, even painting a big Olde English D on the grass.

Chalking?

 

[Football_Bat]

Yup...saw The Great Black Swamp Frogs at their home park two summers ago.

<img src="https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash2/262947_766975597997_3695354_n.jpg">

Some heavy lumber
<img src="https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/262557_766975847497_1511353_n.jpg">

The ump called the game from the side of the plate, like softball
<img src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/281987_766976052087_2172317_n.jpg">

Pitching is underhanded
<img src="https://scontent-b-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/250057_766975902387_4488776_n.jpg">

<img src="https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/282402_766976321547_3527098_n.jpg">

Wasn't obesity in America something like 5 percent back then?

Getting to your 50s was no breeze back then either.

 

[ColdCat]

I covered a couple of games like that in my TV days and there is a team in the small, resort town where my mom lives and I went to one of their games a couple years ago.
I geek out of ancient history of all sports so it's right in my wheelhouse. Now if only we could get some vintage basketball going. Peach baskets and cages for all!
(As for vintage football, given the mortality rate pre-1905, let's not)

 

[buckweaver]

The first known African-American in the majors was Moses Fleetwood Walker, who played for a year in 1884. The unofficial exclusion of black players started in '88.

Correction: It was William Edward White, in 1879.

http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2013/04/william_edward_white_was_a_little_known_19th_century_man_the_first_black.html

White attended Brown University. On June 21, 1879, he filled in for the big-league Providence Grays of the National League. White got a hit, scored a run, fielded 12 plays flawlessly at first base—and never played in the majors again.

The background of William Edward White would have been lost to history were it not for researchers on SABR’s biographical committee, which is devoted to compiling biographical data for all 16,000-plus men who have played in the major leagues. The SABR guys had some basic data on William White. He was born in Milner, Ga., didn’t graduate from Brown, father was A.J. White. But that was it. Then a check of 1880 census data revealed that the only A.J. White in Milner was a former slaveholder named Andrew J. White, and living with him was 35-year-old mulatto, Hannah White. The 1870 census showed that Hannah White had three children—including 9-year-old William White.

That William White attended Brown wasn’t surprising to the researchers—it wasn’t unusual for blacks or people of mixed race to do so at the time. Brown was a Baptist school then; Andrew White was wealthy and built a Baptist church in his town. The final pieces of White’s story were pieced together by a SABR researcher named Peter Morris. Peter has written books about baseball’s early era, innovations that shaped the game, the history of catchers and groundskeeping. (And he’s also a, by the way, former world and national Scrabble champion.)

Peter was intrigued by the emerging details of the White story—a guy who was one-quarter black, which made him legally black in most states, who in the one photo that turned up of Brown’s baseball team does appear to have darker skin, who listed his race as white on the 1880 census. So in January of 2004, I met Peter Morris in Georgia, and we went on a hunt for the smoking gun that would prove William Edward White’s background.

 

[Versatile]

To be clear, 1865 America sucked, as did its baseball.

 

[buckweaver]

I have played some vintage ball and it's a blast ... as long as you don't break any fingers catching barehanded.

It's beer-league softball with funky uniforms. And you might learn a little something about 19th-century baseball while you're at it. Pretty fun.

 

[deskslave]

I have played some vintage ball and it's a blast ... as long as you don't break any fingers catching barehanded.

It's beer-league softball with funky uniforms. And you might learn a little something about 19th-century baseball while you're at it. Pretty fun.

Least surprising post on this thread.

 

[Versatile]

It's beer-league softball with funky uniforms.

Also, the aforementioned risk of broken fingers. And that's if you're lucky enough not to play catcher.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

There's a few of these teams in the Cleveland area. I watched a game. Looks fun. There was even a girl playing.