‘Huzzah’ for Vintage Base Ball

August 4, 2011

By Phil Hecken

As we near the end of Paul’s “blogcation” (as he calls it), I’ve tried to bring you an eclectic mix of subjects and topics, and I thank you for indulging me over the past month. It was a trying time, beginning on a difficult note, and I wish I had more time to provide the best content which Uni Watchers so richly deserve. I have tried to highlight the talents of a number of UW’s contributors, and I thank them for helping me by sharing their time and energies.

No month would be complete, however, without one main article from the man we know by many nicknames, Jim Vilk (known fondly to many of us as “Mothervilker” or “Movi” for short). Jim himself has been a very busy man, but when he promised me a story, I knew he wouldn’t disappoint. And he hasn’t. So lets give a big “Huzzah” for Jim and his look at olde tyme base ball. Here’s Movi:

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“Huzzah” for Vintage Base Ball
By Jim Vilk

Mention the words “black stockings,” and you’ll probably get a raised eyebrow or an “Ooo la la!” from the bawdier lads amongst your circle of friends. In Akron, Ohio, however, “Black Stockings” bring to mind the great sport of vintage base ball. That’s right, two words: “base ball.”

Recently, the Akron Black Stockings Base Ball Club hosted the 14th annual Akron Cup exhibition at Stan Hywet (that’s pronounced “hewitt”) Hall and Gardens. I had the pleasure of attending, and was very impressed with this look at “base ball as it was meant to be played.” I’ll admit I was expecting a cross between a progressive Civil War re-enactment and a Trekkie convention, with some heavy, uncomfortable woolen uniforms thrown in for good measure. Instead, I enjoyed a day of good old-fashioned fun, with some surprisingly wearable styles. I won’t go much into the rule differences, because, well, there’s a site for that. I’ll touch on a few rules, though, before moving on to the uniforms.

For starters, I absolutely love the heavy emphasis on sportsmanship. Yes, there is one umpire for a game, but if he doesn’t see something, he will defer to the honor of the players to make the final decision on a play. Who needs instant replay? Wouldn’t Don Denkinger, Jim Joyce or Jerry Meals like to have fallen back on that concept? After the games, both clubs say a few words and offer a hearty “Huzzah!” three times for their opponents. Also, I found the out-on-one-bounce (or “one bound”) rule interesting. It speeds up a game where there are no called strikes, plus it adds to the safety factor when playing with no gloves. Instead of sacrificing one’s hands or face on a screaming liner, one can catch it off the bounce instead. As for the field dimensions, while the grass infield may be standard, the outfield is anything but. Got trees in left field? They’re in play.

“We just find a field and play,” said 55-year-old Rudy Frias, Sr., who played either hurler (pitcher) or behind (catcher) for the Columbus Capitals. He mentioned fields in other places during his 20-year career, including one which had a stream running through the outfield. In another, “the outfield was a hill. If you saw just the heads of the outfielders, you knew they were playing back. If you saw more of them, you knew they were playing in on you.” Rudy was a joy to talk to, as was Rich Blasick. Rich normally plays for the Black Stockings, but a broken finger left him relegated to umpiring and taking the time to educate people on the sport. He showed me some of the equipment, including the ball. It looks and sounds hard, but it has *some* give to it. One was still hard enough to be the cause of Rich’s broken finger, though. Rudy said some players could hit it to the warning track when they recently played on a minor-league baseball field. As for the bats, most are custom-made for vintage base ball. “We do allow some modern baseball bats,” Rich said, “if they scrape the manufacturer’s labels off of them.” Bats are supposed to be narrow, while length is not an issue. Case in point: Rudy may speak softly, but he carries a big stick. “I think it’s about 42 inches,” he said. “I’ve checked to make sure it’s regulation, but no one has said it’s too long.”

Now, on to the uniforms. At first, I was taken aback by the lack of numbers. After a few innings, however, I adjusted. In an intimate setting where the spectators can see the players up close, they really weren’t that necessary. Three of the teams – Akron and Columbus, as well as the Hoover Sweepers (from North Canton, home of Hoover Vacuums) – wore monogrammed bib-type crests on the front of their otherwise normal vintage shirts. Two teams – the Cleveland Blues (love the striped blue socks) and the Alliance Crossing Rails (shown in the outfield against the Pittsburgh Franklins) – wore what looked like turn-of-the-20th-century gray uniforms with stitched letters. One Alliance player, though, looked more at home in this century, as you could barely see his red socks. There’s a pajamaist in every crowd, isn’t there? Apparently, there’s a swoosh in every crowd, too, as one Canal Dover Redleg forgot to un-modernize his spikes. Egads, the MOTB is everywhere! Other teams – such as the Franklins and the Wyandotte Ghostriders, wore plain white shirts and colored work pants with suspenders.

I’d wear all of these uniforms, but if I had to pick a favorite, I’d go with Columbus’. Their blue plaid shirts and my talking with Rudy took me back to my childhood. I used to visit my cousins in Pennsylvania, and we’d play ball on one of two irregular fields. One was slanted (to throw to home from the outfield, we’d throw to third and let the ball roll down to home from there) and the other had cow pies, weeds and other distractions in it. My cousin Bobby was a real farm boy, so he wore lots of plaid shirts in contrast to my baseball t-shirts. He’d look right at home on the Capitals, I thought.

Think you’d look right at home on one of these clubs? Maybe you’d like to start your own. After a day of watching and learning, I’ll admit I started thinking about it…and not just because I like to say, “Huzzah!”

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Thanks Jim. Great stuff.

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Benchies from the Beginning
By Rick Pearson

For nearly three years, “Benchies” has been appearing most weekends at Uni Watch. While Bench Coach Phil fills in for Paul Monday through Friday during August, we present a retrospective. New strips will continue to appear on weekends. For further background, here’s the “Benchies” backstory and bios on the regular Boys of “Benchies.”

And here is the full-size version.

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Uni Watch News Ticker (compiled by John Ekdahl): Utah’s new football uniforms will be more “player friendly“, whatever the hell that means (Kyle). … Winnipeg Jets “Est. 2011” gear, while technically true in this iteration, is probably not the message the fans want, right? (Ben Gorbaty) … Dodgers fans are starting to get proactive about the Mark Cuban push (Mike McLaughlin). … Take a look at the Nike Free prototype golf shoe for Tiger Woods. … Mike Smrek, the backup center to the 1988 NBA Champion Lakers, is auctioning off twelve pairs of sneakers worn by all twelve members of the team. It doesn’t say how he acquired them all. … “To celebrate Jeter’s historical 3,000 career hits, the Jordan Brand has teamed up with Jeter’s Turn 2 Foundation and Steiner Sports to auction off this limited edition trunk filled with Jeter’s entire signature footwear collection from the Jordan Brand.” (previous three entries by Matt Powers) … Les Miles has assigned #38 to four different players on the LSU Tigers football team this year. This, of course, is allowed as long as they’re not on the field at the same time (Dennis Couvillion). … The Atlanta Silverbacks have launched a uniform design contest for fans (Andrew Rader). … Great pic here of the Iowa State equipment staff “gearing up” for the season (Corey Munson). … A 9-year legal dustup between Southern Miss and Iowa about USM’s logo may finally have been resolved. Lawyers are involved though, so scratch that (Jon Rousseau). … The New York Times posted an article about the evolution of the NASA logos yesterday (Doug Robb). … Wayne Hagin’s replacement? I know Paul would be on board for that (Tim McNulty). … Yadier Molina’s magic loogie (Brady Phelps). … The Durham Bulls will be wearing this Star Wars themed jersey on Saturday (Tim Corrigan). … Can anyone tell who makes NC State’s practice jerseys? It’s so hard to tell (Tom Arnel).

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“Have you counted up all the ‘I expect’ and ‘I usually get’ statements in that long-winded diatribe of ego-centrism you passed off as constructive web content criticism? It’s going to pain you to hear this, but the internet doesn’t wake up every morning and tailor its content to your delicate sensibilities.” — John Ekdahl

Comments (143)

Those Durham Bulls jerseys seem a lot more Star Trek themed than Star Wars.

Classy usage of the quote there in the end Phil.

I was reading Breaks of the Game last night. It’s a book that chronicles the Blazers 1979-80 season. During midseason when the Blazers where about to deal for some players but they hadn’t happened yet, the book mentioned that the GM ordered 3 uniforms to be made up for the new incoming players even though the possibilities of the deal happening was 50/50. Struck me as odd because usually when a deal would happen, players still have to pass their physicals and finally join there team several days later. This would give the equipment manager ample time to make up the uniform until well after the trade has been confirmed. Does anyone know if in the 70s, NBA players could just play for another team right away if they were traded or did the physicals come in later on?

Great VBB writeup! First off, I’ve been involved in founding now three vintage clubs, and it’s absolutely true: If you’re interested, and there are no clubs nearby, start your own! Starting out, uniforms don’t have to be any more complex or expensive than a pair of Dickies, a button-up shirt, and a no-logo ballcap. As long as everyone more or less matches, you’re not only good to go, but you’re authentic period, since early club uniforms tended to be less uniform than even a modern beer-league softball team.

On the uniform aspect of the vintage game, there are two basic approaches. The most common (and, I’d say, best) approach is to do a bit of research into actual 1850s-1870s clubs in an area and try to recreate one. Names are easy to find in old press accounts. The pattern was for a club’s formal name to be pluralized to describe the team. Thus the National Base Ball Club of Washington was called the Nationals. For uniforms, the gold standard would be a photo or a drawing (or a surviving artifact in a museum or collection, but that’s extremely rare). Barring that, and most clubs in the 1860s didn’t leave much photo evidence, press accounts often give strong hints. When a newspaper describes the exploits of “canaries,” that means they wore yellow, for example. Anyway, think of the recreate-a-real-club thing as the throwback approach.

Another way to do a team’s unis, when either interest in historical research is lacking, or when no period clubs can be found, is to go for the fauxback approach. A little Google searching will deliver a wide range of period photos and drawings, as well as a wide range of the several hundred vintage club uniforms in use now. Pick colors you like, or that aren’t in use by other nearby clubs, and design uniforms in the style of the period.

One thing you see in the vintage game is a lot of clubs use knickers and stockings anachronistically. There’s very little evidence of teams wearing knickers and stockings prior to the 1868 Red Stockings, and almost none of that style prior to the 1868 season. Yet probably about half of all vintage clubs, who most often play by pre-1865 rules, wear knickers and stockings. It looks cool and “old fashioned” in a way that appeals to vintage players more than trousers, which are a bit more authentic.

Sorry, last paragraph should say “… prior to the 1869 Red Stockings, and almost none of that style prior to the 1868 season.”

And leave it to me to make a correction that’s makes my original even less clear. The Cincinnati club was wearing knickers and red stockings prior to 1869 – definitely in 1868, and maybe as early as 1866 – but the club’s distinctive uniforms didn’t gain widespread attention, and thus national imitation, until their high-profile 1869 season.

Other than the Red Stockings, you don’t see many clubs being nicknamed after their hosiery in the 1860s. Starting in the 1870 season, you see that happening in press accounts all over the country.

I’m actually playing in my first vintage base ball game later this month. It’s a group of guys playing as two separate teams from the area for the local historical society. We’re going a little closer to a Civil War era team and the white shirts dark pants combo.

A hearty Huzzah! to Mr. “Rhubarb” Rogers who directed myself and a coworker to the Chesapeake & Potomac Base Ball Club here in DMV (DC/MD/Va). I’ve been playing since Aught-7, coworker is a recent convert, and now hooked on the game.

To add to Movi’s write-up, some clubs play a variety of different rules, from Cartwright’s Knickerbocker rules up to 1890s versions (which are just about modern).

The 1864 game is a nice mix of modern softball/hardball – underhand pitching which keeps the ball in play, a larger/softer ball than MLB, but no gloves so there’s more skill required than your avg “hang ’em and bang ’em” softball.

Me, Kek & Bernard are a vintage “grounds crew” (2 words) outfit here in Pittsburg. we stand in a grassy field, bitch about the damn south, drink beer, laugh at the fact that the game of base ball will never catch on. one of us will claim to invent the windbreaker jacket. everything is authentic

“Ahoy hoy! Look at the baubles on that lass!”

I’m only seeing 3 players listed with #38 for LSU. I remember hearing about Les doing this last season. He had a punter who was right-footed and one who was left-footed, so he gave them the same number, that way punt returners wouldn’t know which direction the ball would be spinning in when they fielded it. I don’t know that it made a difference, but it was just oen more thing opposing returners had to think about and prepare for going into a game.

It’s true; there’s only 3 players with the number 38. They’re all punters, though, so kind of quirky work from Les.

I believe there were initially four punters/kickers assigned number 38 when the roster was initially released…don’t remember which one was changed to a different number.

If a team has a running quarterback and a passing quarterback what’s to stop the coach from giving them the same number as long as they’re not both on the field at the same time?

Nothing is stopping them, but QBs are close enough to the line of scrimmage to identify them. A punt returner will have a hard time identifying a punter with the distance between them on the field.

Looks like Virginia Tech’s new orange pants have been leaked via Dick’s Sporting Goods.

So does this officially make them Oregon of the East, despite having a ‘classicesque’ look? 3 helmets (maroon, white, orange), 2 jerseys (maroon, white), and 3 pants (maroon, white, orange) are available for gamedays. And its not unfathomable to think orange jerseys are somewhere on the horizon.