Back When It Was Really to Pass Time

By Amber Lester Sunday, July 25, 2010

On the weekends, some of Colonial Williamsburg’s interpreters like to get out of those wigs and breeches and go back to the future. They don’t travel too far, though — just about 100 years.

 

The group time travels to 1864, when a new game called “base ball” was king. They play according to the rules agreed upon by the Knickerbocker Baseball Club of New York in 1845. This weekend, the Pastime Base Ball Club of Williamsburg will host the Potomac Club of Washington, D.C. for a Club Day practice and exhibition at 11 a.m. at the James City/Williamsburg Community Center’s multi-use field.

 

Ron Carnegie, whose day job is portraying George Washington for CW, decided to start the vintage base ball team in 2008. He wasn’t a huge baseball fan, but liked the idea of reenacting the Civil War era without wearing a gray or blue military uniform. “I just thought it was interesting to reenact something that was peaceful and not war-related,” he says.

He researched the base ball of the era, finding that club teams started forming throughout Virginia in 1866 and 1867. Yorktown had a team and Richmond had several, but Carnegie found no documentation of a Williamsburg club. The new team is modeled after the Richmond Pastime, a club that wore gray pantaloons, white shirts, black belts and blue caps. They were the most prominent team in Richmond until their disbanding in 1870.

The Williamsburg team competes against other vintage base ball teams as part of the Mid-Atlantic Vintage Base Ball League, which includes teams from New Jersey to North Carolina. The team must have nine players to play, but are currently recruiting to replace some players who were sidelined by illness or job conflicts.

The game is quite different from its modern incarnation. Players didn’t use mitts, so mistakes were common. Bats could be any length, so some would stretch far past a modern bat. The size of the ball fell somewhere between today’s hard baseball and a softball. The umpire acted more as an emcee with only one real responsibility — to call fair and foul balls. But the biggest difference by far was the cordial nature of the game.

“It was very gentlemanly,” Carnegie says. “Both sides were very supportive of each other and in the 19th century, could be fined by the umpire for the use of profanity.”  Carnegie’s team keeps that rule and uses the fine of the era — one quarter.

The players were so gentlemanly, in fact, that they decided when a player was safe or out, only asking the umpire to intervene if they couldn’t come to an agreement. It’s that demeanor that attracts players, Carnegie says.

“You feel that difference in the people who are playing,” he says. “They’re very friendly, and usually the friendly atmosphere is what you experience. In modern adult softball, players can get very aggressive. Vintage players tend to be more about the pleasure of the game and sharing the pleasure with the public. I think that’s nice.”