Note: This is the second half of a two part post. Read the first part here.
By: Bill Coleman
Baseball Before It Became a Business
There is another reason that vintage base ball played under the direction of the Vintage Base Ball Association (VBBA) can feel almost surreal to modern fans. The game exists outside the enormous commercial machine that surrounds Major League Baseball. No instant replay. No pitch clock. No radar gun. No luxury boxes. No advertising explosion. No 162-game schedule. Instead, there are players, spectators, wooden bats, grass and a baseball, as well as a surprisingly competitive game.
The 19th century was hardly baseball’s primitive childhood. It was an era of extraordinary experimentation. Rules changed frequently. Different regions and clubs developed different traditions, during which the pitching, equipment and uniforms all evolved. The game that eventually became modern baseball was being invented in real time. Vintage base ball allows spectators to see this evolution rather than simply reading about it.
History You Can Hear
Perhaps the greatest appeal is sensory. You can hear the crack of a wooden bat. You can see a player chase a ball with his bare hands. You can watch runners circle bases without the protective equipment and specialized gear surrounding modern baseball.
And then there is the clothing. Long pants, period shirts, caps and high socks. Suddenly, an old photograph is not quite as distant. The men in those photographs stop looking like historical figures frozen in time and instead start looking like ballplayers.
From the Cincinnati Red Stockings to the Local Ball Field
The vintage movement also provides a fascinating window into the rapid transformation of baseball during the 1860s and 1870s. In 1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first openly all-professional baseball club, assembling a team of stars and embarking upon an extraordinary national tour. The club reportedly traveled thousands of miles and established an astonishing reputation for winning. Within a few years, professional baseball leagues would emerge. Overhand pitching would eventually become legal. Gloves would become increasingly important. Eventually, the rules, uniforms and economics would all change, with baseball thus becoming the professional sport Americans know today. Vintage base ball stops that historical clock at various points along the way. Some clubs favor the late 1850s, many play by rules from the 1860s, while others portray later 19th-century baseball, including the 1880s. Each version offers a different glimpse into baseball’s evolution.
It’s Serious History, yet it’s also Fun
There is a danger with historical reenactment. It can become so concerned with accuracy that it forgets why people showed up in the first place. The VBBA tries to avoid that trap. Its philosophy is that historical accuracy actually enhances the fun. That is an important distinction, since the goal is not to turn a baseball game into a museum lecture. Instead, it is to turn the museum lecture into a baseball game.
Kids can watch it. Adults can ask questions. History buffs can obsess over uniforms and rules. Baseball fans can marvel at how radically different the sport once was from its inception, while everybody gets to see something that does not exist anywhere in Major League Baseball. A baseball game without gloves.
The Strange Magic of Playing Old Baseball
There’s something almost poetic about the VBBA. Baseball is famously obsessed with its past. We celebrate Babe Ruth, debate about Ty Cobb and argue about Ted Williams. We collect old cards, stare at black-and-white photographs and memorize statistics from players who have been dead for generations. The VBBA though takes the next step.
It Lets People Play the Past
The Association’s mission is not simply to remember baseball’s formative years. It preserves and perpetuates them by maintaining the old rules, customs and keeping traditions alive through actual competition. Perhaps that is why the experience can be so powerful.
When a modern fan sees an 1860s photograph, the distance between then and now seems enormous. Instead, putting that same fan beside a vintage ball field and suddenly the distance collapses. A man grips a wooden bat, a hurler winds up, the striker steps toward the plate, while the crowd grows quiet. Thus, for one wonderfully strange afternoon, 1864 is not history, but instead it is a ballgame.
THE VINTAGE BASE BALL ASSOCIATION AT A GLANCE
Founded: February 11th, 1996
Founding meeting: Columbus, Ohio
Original delegates: 13 clubs from five states
Mission: Preserve, perpetuate and promote baseball as played during its formative years and other historic eras
Typical eras portrayed: Late 1850s, 1860s and 1880s
Equipment: Period-style bats and balls; many eras played without gloves
Pitching: Generally underhand in the earliest eras
Playing locations: Museums, historical sites, living-history events, parks and other public venues
Geographic reach: More than 20 U.S. states and Canada
For Baseball Purists
The Vintage Base Ball Association may be one of the purest expressions of the idea behind Baseball Purist. It came before baseball turned into an industry, before it was a television product, before analytics and technology transformed every pitch into data. It was simply a game played by people who loved hitting, throwing, running and catching a ball. The VBBA does not merely tell us what that baseball looked like. It lets us watch it happen again.
EXTRA INNINGS!!!
Conan Plays Old Timey Baseball | Late Night with Conan O’Brien
A Friendly Game of Baseball…1861 style! – https://www.thamesbbc.org/