Our 2019 season officially starts tomorrow at CT Day at Colt Meadows in Hartford. All five Connecticut vintage teams plus the Eckford BBC of Brooklyn will participate. While rain is expected overnight tonight it should clear up early Saturday morning well before the first games at 11:00am. It will be cloudy but temperatures should be in the 60’s. Should be a lot of fun!
Category Archives: Events
Vintage baseball game to be played at Nathan Hale Homestead
“Vintage baseball game to be played at Nathan Hale Homestead” – The Day
“COVENTRY (AP) — Two periods of American history will come together next month during an unusual baseball doubleheader in Connecticut.
The Nathan Hale Homestead is hosting the vintage baseball exhibition on June 30th.
The Bouckville Summits and the Providence Grays, two teams from the Mid-Atlantic Vintage Base Ball League, will play in a field at the birthplace of the Revolutionary War spy.
The rules and equipment will be authentic to those used in 1864. The balls are hand-stitched and the bats used are heavier and longer than modern ones.
Sponsors say it will be a “gentlemen’s game,” with cursing resulting in a 25-cent fine and an apology to the spectators.
The Hale Homestead is situated on 17 acres, adjoining the 1,500-acre Nathan Hale State Forest.”
Remember: The name is ‘Base Ball’
“Remember: The name is ‘Base Ball’ – Rita Christopher/The Day
“Where can you be a crank that people want to see? Observe a dewdrop that isn’t wet? Call for rover and not get a nuzzle from a golden retriever? At the tri-town vintage baseball game sponsored by the historical societies of Essex, Chester and Deep River on Sunday at Devitt Field in Deep River…”
Grave of Baseball Pioneer Finally Marked
The new Davis gravestone. The epitaph was written by James Whyte Davis more than a century ago. Davis had a reputation for showing up at games after the action had already started; hence his nickname, “Too Late to the Home Plate.” Davis denied habitual lateness.
The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) recently created its 19th Century Baseball Grave Marker Project. Its first task: marking James Whyte Davis’s grave.
So, this past Saturday, on a lovely spring morning, a crowd gathered at James Whyte Davis’s grave. John Thorn, major league baseball’s official historian, and Peter Nash, spoke about Davis. Two great granddaughters of Doc Adams, a member of the Knickerbockers who had played with Davis on the Knickerbockers and had written out the early rules of baseball–a document that sold just days earlier for $3.26 million, read a letter that Adams wrote…
Read more: Grave of Baseball Pioneer Finally Marked – Jeff Richman/Greenwood Historian Blog (17 May 2016)
Historical societies to play ball
“Historical societies to play ball” – The Day
“The historical societies of Chester, Deep River and Essex are teaming up to present their second Vintage Base Ball game on Sunday, Sept. 20, at Devitt Field, on Main Street in Deep River. The 2 p.m. game will be free to the public. Three teams will play two or three innings each by late 19th-century rules and customs to recreate the earliest days of America’s pastime. Historical commentary will be provided to help the audience understand baseball rules of the 1850s. Players will wear specially made uniforms and caps representing their towns’ uniforms of the past and will use authentic reproduction wooden bats and hand-sewn hard balls. Old-time refreshments will be sold by Ivoryton Tavern. Raindate will be Sept. 27. For more information, call (860) 526-2331 or visit chesterhistoricalsociety.org.”