« Focusing in on the Important Issues | Main | Time Traveling Aliens »
June 17, 2006
A Gentleman's Game
Today we went to see the Rochester Grangers, a vintage base ball team. In brief, vintage base ball is baseball played by the rules of some time in the past (the Grangers played the Bay City Independents using 1867 rules today). There are actually quite a few teams playing vintage base ball, and what I can't figure out is how I missed out on this for so long.
The most important difference between vintage base ball and today's baseball at any level is that the vintage sport is a gentleman's game. The players and fans cheer good play, rather than good play by their team. Players resolve disputes among themselves, though I must say that there was not a single dispute that I saw today: the players knew when they were out, or were most likely out, and simply abandoned the field. The umpire, besides calling foul balls, can only rule on a judgement call if asked, and only the team captains can approach the umpire. The rules are quite different: the players field bare-handed; the ball and bat are different sizes and, for the ball, of different composition; the fields are irregular (the Grangers' field prominently features a tree in left field); the pitcher's duty is to get the ball to the batter so that he can hit it (vintage base ball is a hitting and fielding game, rather than a pitching duel); fouls don't count as strikes, and balls are not called; and on foul balls (or any ball under slightly earlier rules), you can catch the ball on one bounce for an out. The purpose of the game is gentlemanly competition, exercise and entertainment, and the home team feeds the visiting team afterwards (after all, they've come a long way).
We ate lunch in the shade of some trees in deep right field, and I have not had so much fun at a baseball game since I was a child.
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.caerdroia.org/MT/mt-tb.cgi/1019