Town Ball - Old-fashioned Base Ball

Old-fashioned Base Ball

Another term applied retroactively to precursor baseball games was Old Fashioned Base Ball. This game was generally identified as a type of baseball with large numbers on each side, where the fielders threw the ball at the runner. The Knickerbocker Antiquarian Base Ball Club of Newark, New Jersey continued to play old fashioned base ball at least until 1865. After the Civil War, old-timers still put on exhibitions of traditional baseball at picnics and charity events. For instance, in Mauston, Wisconsin in 1888, the festivities at The Old Settlers Jubilee included "an old fashioned base ball game." Ironically, the only mention of baseball in The Chronicles of Cooperstown describes an old fashioned game:

1877. A famous game of old-fashioned base ball was played here, in August — Judge Sturges heading the "Reds" and Judge Edick the "Blues" — 16 on a side. The victory was with the "Blues." It called together a large concourse of people.

Many articles were written waxing nostalgically for the old game. This nostalgia was satirized by Robert J. Burdette in his story "Rollo Learning to Play":

"And town ball," he said, "good old town ball! There was no limit to the number on a side. The ring was anywhere from three hundred feet to a mile in circumference, according to whether we played on a vacant Pingree lot or out on the open prairie... The bat was a board, about the general shape of a Roman galley oar and not quite so wide as a barn door. The ball was of solid India rubber; a little fellow could hit it a hundred yards, and a big boy, with a hickory club, could send it clear over the bluffs or across the lake. We broke all the windows in the school-house the first day, and finished up every pane of glass in the neighborhood before the season closed. The side that got its innings first kept them until school was out or the last boy died." — The Wit and Humor of America, Vol. 5 1907

Varieties of town ball remained a popular schoolyard activity, especially in rural areas, well into the 20th century. In recent times the Massachusetts Rules have occasionally been used by "vintage" baseball clubs, such as the Leatherstocking Base Ball Club of Cooperstown, NY.