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09/12/2017 12:00 AMAt Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium, fielders don’t deliberately let line drives bounce before catching them—that would bring a big E for error on the scorecard. Things are going to be different at Devitt Field in Deep River on Sunday, Sept. 17, however, for the fourth annual Tri-Town Vintage Baseball game—actually, let’s get the name right at the start. It was a two-word sport: base ball.
Teams from Deep River, Chester, and Essex play the game using 1857 rules. What that means is when a ball is caught on one bounce, the batter is still out. And fielders, called scouts in those days, are well advised to let the ball hit the ground to slow it up before catching it. That’s because they field bare-handed, no gloves allowed.
The ball is an 1857 creation, too, an oval-shaped orb softer than a modern baseball, but according to Rick Atkinson, who captains the Deep River team, it still can sting.
“The hardest thing is catching the ball with no glove,” he said.
The bat, too, is a longer, narrower version of a modern one, but hitters have an advantage that a modern batters can only dream about: they get to show the pitcher (and please call him the hurler) where they would like to get the ball. And nobody ever says, “batter up,” because the player swinging at the plate is a striker; other members of the team, known as the club nine, are called ballists.
Team managers don’t have an umpire to yell at when they don’t like the ball and strike calls, because there is no umpire and nobody calls balls and strikes. The only things that count as strikes are whiffs at a pitch. Three of those whiffs and strikers have a cataclysmic fate: They are dead, but only until they come to bat again.
No point in trying to fool the opposition with a bunt: Strikers who bunted were out. On the other hand, there was always the possibility that even a muffin could hit a daisy cutter and get on base. That’s no a blueberry muffin, but an unskilled player banging out a tough ground ball.
When a striker gets a hit, there are still some things to be careful about. A player who overruns first base is automatically out and even if the runner lands safely at first, there are things to avoid: no leads off base allowed and no stealing bases. Should the runner successfully make it around to home plate, please don’t say that the player has scored a run. The correct term was an ace. Of course, one thing was still the same: The side with more aces won the game.
Instead of an umpire, there is an adjudicator who can stand anywhere on the field. Doug Senn, who has been the adjudicator for the last three years, is taking on the job of coaching the Ivoryton, Centerbrook, Essex squad (called ICE) to represent the three towns and Patrick McCauley is taking over the adjudicator’s post.
McCauley isn’t planning to do much more than patrol the sidelines, though.
“They told me that in 1857 it was considered a gentleman’s game and the players agreed on most things themselves,” he said.
Still, he plans to dress for the part with wire-rimmed glasses, a bowler hat, striped pants, and a pipe in his mouth. And he will have to be on guard for boodlers, as ungentlemanly players were called.
The Deep River squad is the defending champion and the ICE team has never won the round robin, but Senn thinks this might be the year for his squad, and the Senn family could be the reason.
“We’ve brought back some former players,” he said, among then Senn’s son John, away in the Air Force for the last two years.
The historical societies of Essex, Deep River, and Chester sponsor the game and Keith and Sandy Dauer of Chester have organized the proceedings for the past several years.
“I guess you could call me the commissioner, at least the titular commissioner,” Keith Dauer said.
iCRV radio’s Jeff Cohen, host of the station’s weekly Crave Sports show, will be broadcasting the play-by-play and Peter Zanardi of Chester, a retired sportswriter, will be the color commentator. In his professional career, Zanardi once covered baseball, college sports, and auto racing for the Hartford Times, which went out of business several decades ago.
Finally, if you are sitting watching the club nine from the stands and somebody calls you a crank, don’t take it as an insult. Cranks were what fans were known as in 1857. And what were cranks supposed to shout when their team scored an ace? Why “Huzzah!” of course. Especially if the striker hits a four-baser—and no modern fan needs an explanation to know what that means.
Tri-town Vintage Base Ball Game
The Tri-town Vintage Base Ball Game sponsored by the historical societies of Essex, Deep River, and Chester returns for its fourth year on Sunday, Sept. 17 from 2 to 4 p.m. Devitt Field, 245 South Main Street, Deep River. (Rain Date: Sunday, Sept. 24) Admission is free.