Rules and Game Play
Although rules differ according to which playing year is being used, there are some mostly common rules differences between the modern game and vintage base ball. In rules of years prior to the 1880s, the ball is pitched underhand in a manner suitable to the batter, or "striker." There are typically no fences as base ball is mostly played in fields and green spaces. However, obstacles (e.g. trees, building, etc.) often come into play. In many of the rules sets the ball can be played off of one bounce to get a striker out. Catching the ball can be very difficult because no gloves are used. This lack of gloves, the underhand pitching and other rules make vintage baseball similar to the sport of British baseball.
Because limited descriptive evidence exists to illustrate how live gameplay may have looked or sounded, researchers and vintage "ballists", or ballplayers, engage in an ongoing interpretive discourse about how the game may have actually appeared. There is continuous debate about such points of play as how frequently runners would steal bases, when sliding first became common and what it might have looked like, how strikers would hold or swing the bat, how the umpire's authority evolved, and how players would have conducted themselves on the field.
One commonly held interpretation is that gameplay was marked by a spirit of gentlemanly sportsmanship. Modern vintage ballists will often observe this custom through friendly gestures such as cheering good plays made by opposing players, assisting umpires with making calls at bases, and conducting organized cheers for opposing teams (and often for the umpire and "cranks", or fans) at the conclusion of a match.
The politeness and sportsmanship observed in these games are more in keeping with the early days of baseball, which was considered a "gentleman's game". As the game progressed into professionalism in the 1870s and money (and thus winning) became a primary motivator, the 19th century game became marked by rough play and cheating, which was relatively easy to accomplish, due to the lone umpire who might fail to see such infractions.
The Vintage Base Ball Association is an international association of vintage ball clubs which promotes the game through conferences, publications, message boards and listservs, educational resources, and links to leagues, clubs, tournaments and related activities in the United States and Canada.
Read more about this topic: Vintage Base Ball
Famous quotes containing the words rules and, rules, game and/or play:
“Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.
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—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“There are two great rules in life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that every one can in the end get what he wants if he only tries. This is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is more or less of an exception to the general rule.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“The indispensable ingredient of any game worth its salt is that the children themselves play it and, if not its sole authors, share in its creation. Watching TV’s ersatz battles is not the same thing at all. Children act out their emotions, they don’t talk them out and they don’t watch them out. Their imagination and their muscles need each other.”
—Leontine Young (20th century)
“PLAYING SHOULD BE FUN! In our great eagerness to teach our children we studiously look for “educational” toys, games with built-in lessons, books with a “message.” Often these “tools” are less interesting and stimulating than the child’s natural curiosity and playfulness. Play is by its very nature educational. And it should be pleasurable. When the fun goes out of play, most often so does the learning.”
—Joanne E. Oppenheim (20th century)