Ball six!
Vintage baseball teams take the field to pay homage to the national pastime’s roots, when the rules - and manners - were different
Playing baseball 1880s style isn’t easy, but the nicknames make it all worthwhile.
Replica wool uniforms are itchy and hot. Gloves are tiny and offer little protection from hot infield shots, and many of the rules allow trick plays that can cost runs, even a game, if players aren’t wary.
“It’s not for the faint of heart,’’ said Gary “Dot’’ Nisbet, commissioner of Hingham’s fledgling vintage baseball teams, the Coopers and the Derbys.
“The players today don’t know how good they have it,’’ he said.
The Coopers and the Derbys are the only vintage baseball teams in Boston’s south suburbs, though they’re trying to get Norwell to add to the ranks. Though their ranks are small, there are a growing number of baseball enthusiasts and professional and amateur historians across New England who have gone back in time to play an old brand of baseball and bring the past into the present.
“It’s a great way to bring history alive - and everyone gets a nickname,’’ said Nisbet. “All the players in the 1880s had nicknames. Some make sense, some don’t, but everyone’s got one.’’
Nisbet and the other players on the Derbys and the Coopers have channeled the spirit of 1880s baseball legend Mike “King’’ Kelly - the Babe Ruth of his time - who drove opponents crazy with creative play that some called cheating, and whipped up baseball fever among Boston’s Irish immigrants who loved his showboating, womanizing, and hard-drinking ways.
Kelly’s Boston Beaneaters fans loved him so much they bought him a house in Hingham at 507 Main St., a rollick ing locale that set the stage for the Irishman’s flamboyant parties. When he wasn’t at home, he ventured into the town center while wearing a fur coat and followed by a flashy entourage that included a small monkey and a manservant.
The Hingham Historical Society’s new director, Suzanne Buchanan, is credited with sparking interest among Hingham’s players and enlisting the help of Nisbet, owner of Dot Gallery in Hingham Square. Once he heard Kelly’s story and Buchanan’s vintage ball team idea, Nisbet set out to spread the love of Kelly and old-time baseball.
“I wanted in as soon as I heard about it,’’ said Jeff “Cueball’’ Quillen, 43, who describes himself as a frustrated coach and athlete who jumped at the chance to get back on the base paths - which he hadn’t done since high school and college.
The teams do not have a regular schedule and mainly play exhibition games like one today at 2:30 p.m., when they will fill Derby Academy’s lower field with old-time music, lemonade, and beer.
The game follows their popular appearance in the Fourth of July parade, a tradition started three years ago when the teams formed.
Players said a big part of the fun - besides getting a nickname - is learning the old rules, many of which are foreign to today’s game.
There’s the “bamboozle,’’ when a foul ball is caught after the first bounce and results in the batter being out. It takes six balls for a walk instead of four. Batters who are hit by a pitch don’t take first base; that is simply a ball.
Then there’s the infield fly rule.
In today’s game, when men are on base the batter is called out immediately on an infield fly, and runners on base can’t be forced out if the ball isn’t caught.
In the 1880s and its present reincarnation, however, there is no infield fly rule, so defensive players can let the ball drop and catch runners in a double - or even triple - play.
“We got burned on an infield fly play,’’ said Bob “Moonlight’’ Walker, a Hingham pediatrician better known around town for his care of young patients than his formidable play in the infield, where he uses a heavy-duty workmen’s glove instead of a mitt because he finds the old-style gloves less useful.
The play in question occurred when Hingham played the Hartford Senators in an exhibition game last October.
The final score was 8 to 1 in favor of Hartford, and Hingham’s players said they were happy to get out of that game alive.
“Those guys were good. They practice. They’re in a competitive league . . .’’ said “Moonlight’’ Walker, who gained his nickname from a pilgrimage to his native Iowa with his son Zack to play catch on Father’s Day on the “Field of Dreams,’’ a ballfield made famous in the 1989 movie in which Archibald “Moonlight’’ Graham gets his chance to face a major league pitcher after years in the minors.
The Hartford Senators, formed in 2001, are Vintage Base Ball (using the former style of two words) Federation World Champions and play two or three times a week in the New England Vintage Base Ball Association league. Teams from Connecticut, New Hampshire, Long Island, N.Y., and Chicopee, Westfield, Pittsfield, and Whately in Massachusetts also play in the league.
Nearly all of the teams and leagues started as a way to promote history.
Some are highly skilled teams with semipro players and former college players who want to play hardball, not softball. Others are just looking to play baseball, meet new people, and raise money for libraries, historical societies, and other organizations.
The Vintage Base Ball Federation was founded by former Major League pitcher Jim Bouton, author of the best-seller “Ball Four’’ and now a resident of Egremont. He hosted vintage baseball regional playoffs and World Championships in 2007 and 2008 that brought thousands to Westfield for not only the games, but also a 19th century-style festival that included hayrides, skits, Boys and Girls Club members dressed as newspaper hawkers, and barbershop quartets.
Bouton said he thinks the vintage teams might be a backlash against the overpaid, and overdrugged professional game of today and its excessive media coverage.
“They are attracted to the sportsmanship of it,’’ Bouton said of vintage players. “These guys are tired of playing in leagues that are so competitive that guys are throwing helmets, trash-talking, and swearing,’’ he said.
Bouton said there is an underlying argument about the rules of today’s vintage baseball that mirrors an argument begun in the 1880s, when the gentlemanly rules and strict code of conduct that banned helmet throwing, showboating, trash-talking, and swearing began to erode, first by the overhand pitch, and then by other rule changes.
Some of today’s vintage teams and leagues are sticklers about the equipment used. There are no sunglasses, gold chains, or batting gloves. Some teams, such as one in Bethpage, N.Y., pitch underhand and refuse to budge from the 1860s code of conduct and rules of the game.
“We’re having the same argument today as they did in the 1880s - should it be a game of fun, or one of high-spirited competition, championships, and all that goes with it,’’ Bouton said. “Even the argument is historically accurate. I think it is very amusing and adds to the fun.’’
In Hingham, Nisbet said, the Derbys and Coopers strive to be historically accurate, but claim newness and necessity for any lapse in equipment or rules, such as trash-talking. Right now they are more concerned with encouraging other towns to form vintage teams, because the “filthy, dirty’’ Coopers (named after the town’s once-famous bucket makers) are sick of playing the “dandies’’ on Derby (named after the hats worn in the 19th century).
Hingham players hope a Norwell resident or two might catch the old-time baseball bug from a match played in May, when Norwell put together a team to play Hingham to support the Norwell Public Library.
The spur-of-the-moment Norwell team included out-of-shape town officials, two semipro baseball players, and one woman whom everyone called a “firecracker.’’
With only a few practices the week before the game, Norwell won, and the defeat weighs heavily on Hingham, which wants a rematch.
“I got the impression we would definitely give them a rematch,’’ said Norwell selectmen chairman Richard Merritt, one of several officials who played. “But I didn’t get the impression anyone wanted to play two or three times a week.’’ 