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About Vintage Base Ball.
The term “vintage base ball” was coined in the mid-1990s by a group that subsequently formed the Vintage Base Ball Association. The term was quickly adopted by groups around North America who play “base ball” under old rules. To retain the vernacular of the early nineteenth century, most groups spell it with two words, although the hyphenated “base-ball” was in common use after the Civil War until the early twentieth century. Many mistakenly equate vintage base ball with the hobby of re-enacting. Although some groups may enact old base ball games with the same detail and historic precision as Civil War re-enactors, vintage base ball is a broadly defined activity where the only expectation is to play base ball using authentic rules from an earlier time. The clothing, setting, language, accoutrements, etc. can vary greatly from game to game and group to group. Although vintage base ball was firmly established in museums, many independent groups also wear old uniforms, swing old-style bats and shout words not heard since the nineteenth century. Three baseball eras are commonly enacted by museums, Civil War re-enactors and vintage base ball clubs today: the gentlemens‘ period of 1857-1860 when the nine-inning game was new and the game was dubbed the “National Pastime”; the period during and just after the Civil War when the game became more skilled and its popularity spread throughout the growing nation; and the early professional years of the mid-1880s when blacks played alongside their white teammates and overhand pitching necessitated the first gloves for catchers. Earlier bat and ball games are also played at museums such as Historic Fort Snelling and Colonial Williamsburg. Vintage base ball came to Minnesota by way of the Ohio Village Muffins club of the Ohio Historical Society. On a western journey in 1993 they played a group in Winona, Minnesota. That event attracted the attention of the Olmsted County Historical Society and a couple years later their club, The Roosters, took flight. Concurrent to the Winona game, another group was forming in the Twin Cities by a group of baseball historians who are members of the local Halsey Hall Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research. This group, The Quicksteps, has been playing mid-nineteenth century baseball since the spring of 1994. A list of links to vintage base ball web pages. Additional vintage base ball web pages will be linked in the near future. |
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Copyright 2003-2006 Washington County Historical Society |
Playing ball games in an old-fashioned manner is certainly not a new idea. At the opening of the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, New York in 1939, a game from an earlier time was played. Civil War re-enacting has been around for a long time and ball games are part of the encampments. Living history museums matured in the 1970s and an outcome was the interpretation of amusements. Two such places included old rules base ball as a regular part of its programming in the early 1980s, Ohio Village in Columbus, Ohio and