Vintage Base Ball Federation

The Vintage Base Ball Federation is a proposed baseball league which will play by the original rules of the game. Proposed by former Major League pitcher Jim Bouton in 2006, the rules will include:

  • Six balls for a walk
  • No strike count for a foul ball
  • A foul ball caught on a bounce will count as an out
  • A hit batsman will count as a ball and will not be awarded first base unless it is ball six
  • Only one ball will be used per game unless it becomes too worn out

Bouton is opening the league to any amateur baseball or softball team

Famous quotes containing the words base, ball and/or federation:

    When a man speaks the truth in the spirit of truth, his eye is as clear as the heavens. When he has base ends, and speaks falsely, the eye is muddy and sometimes asquint.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    Don’t tell me what delusion he entertains regarding God, or what mountebank he follows in politics, or what he springs from, or what he submits to from his wife. Simply tell me how he makes his living. It is the safest and surest of all known tests. A man who gets his board and lodging on this ball in an ignominious way is inevitably an ignominious man.
    —H.L. (Henry Lewis)

    Women realize that we are living in an ungoverned world. At heart we are all pacifists. We should love to talk it over with the war-makers, but they would not understand. Words are so inadequate, and we realize that the hatred must kill itself; so we give our men gladly, unselfishly, proudly, patriotically, since the world chooses to settle its disputes in the old barbarous way.
    —General Federation Of Women’s Clubs (GFWC)