SWING FOR THE FENCES The absence of cursing and stealing in Vintage Base Ball can drive players batty.

Photo: Jim Sheets

Anyone coming across the upcoming sporting contest between the Chicago Salmon and the Deep River Grinders out of Hobart, Indiana, might think they’ve stumbled through the corn of Ray Kinsella’s field of dreams. The players will be dressed in period 19th-century uniforms. They will adhere to bygone rules of the game and codes of gentlemanly conduct. The players will not lead off, steal or slide into bases. The umpire will levy fines for alcohol consumption, profanity uttered, spitting and, should any player bare his elbows without the expressed consent of female spectators, indecent exposure. Is this heaven, or maybe hell? No, this is vintage base ball (yes, it was two words back in the day)—and on Sunday 27 at 1pm, it will be on display in Lincoln Park just east of the Chicago History Museum.

Many major league teams have “turn back the clock” events. But for the Salmon, every game hearkens back to the ’50s—the 1850s. The Salmon is just one of the 88 teams that currently make up the Vintage Base Ball Association, established in 1996, coincidentally, the same year the Salmon was founded. The VBBA was created to “preserve, perpetuate and promote the game of base ball as it was played during its formative years in the nineteenth century and other historic eras.”

The Salmon, one of six Illinois VBBA teams, is a barnstorming squad in the classic tradition. The team does not have a home field. It mostly plays in small towns in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan, in open fields or in municipal parks. This is part of the charm of vintage base ball, says the Salmons’ owner/manager, Elizabeth Carlson, 46, a museum curator. It can also present a challenge, with players forced to play around numerous trees that are often found in the makeshift diamonds.

The players range in age from their twenties to mid-fifties. They each have colorful monikers, such as Zeus, Jumbo Shrimp, Pipes, Doc, Professor, Leadfoot and Barber. The team’s designated umpire is Never Wrong. Carlson herself is Boss Lady.

Like Civil War reenacters, the players dress and act in character. They wear band-collar shirts (a shirt without a pointed collar) and button-fly trousers commonly associated with Amish men. (Anachronistic cleats are allowed to prevent slipping on the basepaths.) Carlson wears a corset, hoop skirt and other period attire. “It’s a time-capsule experience,” she says.

The Salmon play according to 1858 rules. The pitcher is referred to as a “hurler,” the catcher “the behind,” the batter a “striker,” and the shortstop a “rover.” Fans are called “cranks.”The players don’t use mitts. Fair or foul, a ball played on a bounce is an out. A ball that hits the ground fair in front of third or first base is still fair if it rolls foul. The VBBA is dedicated to the proposition that base ball is a gentlemen’s game. Opponents are known to acknowledge the other team’s heads-up play with a rousing “Huzzah.” A Salmon player argues an umpire’s call at his own peril. Carlson says that an ump “will drag them off the field by their ear and insist the call go to the other team.”

“It was called America’s pastime for a reason,” she says. “It embodied a lot of the values that small towns and big cities had. This is the game as it was meant to be played.”

The Salmon turn back the clock Sat 27.