Sunday, June 28, 2009

Baseball at Greenfield Village

Every weekend during the summer, they have replica baseball matches at Greenfield Village. They are playing by the rules from 1867. There are many similarities to the modern game but there are a number of differences. There are no balls and strikes are only called if the hitter swings and misses. Although in either case, the ump may give a warning to the pitcher or batter. If the pitches keep missing after that point, the batter gets 3 balls. In the case of a warning to the batter, he gets three more chances to swing. The fielders don't play with gloves (this changed as the ball got more tightly wound was was hit harder). Also, there wasn't a home run fence.

One other difference, if the ball hit foul but rolled fair, it was considered a fair ball. Outs could be made on 1 hop.

This is one style of uniform from the period. Notice the bib looking top. Also the pitchers pitched underhand.

This is the other style of uniform. The batting was pretty much the same as now.

Note the underhanded pitch.







I really like this shot.

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