Weeks: The curious world of baseball re-enactors
From Linton Weeks at NPR’s History Dept. on May 14, 2015:
Vintage baseball players – sort of like Civil War re-enactors who wield wooden bats instead of muskets — move among us. They glory in the past times of America’s pastime.
Think: When Johnny comes sliding home.
Dressed in old uniforms, teams play each other using 19th century rules. Sometimes they don’t wear gloves. Sometimes they pitch underhand. They spell “base ball” as two words. They call each other “ballists.”
From the Franklin, Tenn., Farriers to the New Hampshire Granite to the Mudville Base Ball Club in Holliston, Mass., vintage ballists take the game seriously.
For a scouting report on the throwback movement, we caught up with first baseman John “Lefty” Coray, 54, of the Dirigo, Maine, Vintage Base Ball Club. Off-field, Coray is a retired Navy commander who works at a data center in Brunswick, Maine. We peppered him with questions. Here is the boxscore, the whole nine innings.
Read the full article here: http://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/05/14/404161786/the-curious-world-of-baseball-re-enactors
Originally published: May 15, 2015. Last Updated: May 15, 2015.