The Tournament We've All Been Waiting For

It's been a long season already and we're not nearly done, but we have come to the point in this, my first season of vintage base ball, which I have been anxiously awaiting since the first 'Goodwill Match' back in March:  It's time for the Ohio Cup!

Believe it or not, that's an actual quote from Lincoln, not one
of those made up quotes from the Internet.

The Ohio Cup is not just another base ball tournament.  It is THE tournament for vintage base ball in the United States.  This year marks the 22nd edition of the Cup, held as always in lovely, downtown, Columbus, Ohio.  "Why Columbus?" you may be asking.  Heck, I don't know, other than the tournament is coordinated by one of the pioneering teams of the Vintage Base Ball Association, the Ohio Village Muffins.  It is held at Ohio Village, part of the Ohio History Museum site, and what started out as a three-team tournament back in 1992 has now ballooned into the largest gathering of vintage base ball teams in the nation, featuring 32 teams from around the midwest.

The Ohio Cup isn't a tournament in the sense that there are brackets that lead to an eventual champion, although it did start with that format.  But it has evolved into a two-day festival celebrating the game as it was played in 1860.  There is still a lot of competition and teams play to win, but because of the size of the festival and amount of teams, games are limited to one-hour time limits.  Nevertheless, my Perfectos teammates still talk about the time two years ago when they went "undefeated' in the tournament, with five victories and one draw.  Last year, they won all three games on the first day, celebrated too hard on Saturday night, and dropped all three games on Sunday (whilst taking breaks in the outfield to 'dispose' of the contents of their stomach...if I ain't being too subtle).

At any rate, from what I understand we've drawn a bit of tough schedule this year.  Our first game on Saturday morning at 9 am will be against the Columbus Capitals.

Legend has it that the Capitals have not lost a match in the Ohio Cup in over five years and their lineup features at least one former New York Yankee.  After the Capitals we will face two of the original three teams from the first Ohio Cup.

Great Black Swamp Frogs

At noon we will face the Great Black Swamp Frogs from Sylvania, Ohio, and then at 3 pm we will take on the tournament hosts, the Ohio Village Muffins.

We then turn around on Sunday morning, at 10 am, to face the Welkin Base Ball Club from Port Huron, Michigan.

Welkin BBC Stamp

And then at 1 pm we face the Union Base Ball Club from somewhere in Minnesota (seriously, they don't have the city listed...just Minnesota.)

Somewhere, Minnesota

Then we finish the tournament Sunday afternoon against the...wait for it...

That's right...the Frosty Sons of Thunder, hailing from Somerset, Pennsylvania.

I really have been looking forward to this tournament all season.  Although there is no overall champion awarded, and we still have the Missouri Cup on the horizon, this is the big one.  We want to do well.

We will be missing a few of our players as Pitchfork, Hammer, and Walnuts will not be making the trip. But we will be picking up three of the St. Louis Unions ballists: Mayhem, Noodles, and Beans.  We will be representing the city of St. Louis as the St. Louis Empires rather than the Perfectos.  Our sister clubs, the Lafayette Square Cyclones and the St. Louis Brownstockings will also be combining forces and representing the city as the St. Louis Maroons.

The official seal of the Greater St. Louis Base Ball Historical Society

It should be a great weekend...stand by for news.

Dixie

B*tches Be Trippin'!

So, me and ole Sweet Tea are dog lovers.  We share our house and our lives with a BEAST of a small, fluffy, white dog named Lucy.  Before meeting Lucy I was a confirmed "big dog" person and couldn't imagine myself ever having a "small dog" run my life.  When I met Lucy, it had been only about six months since my sons and I had said goodbye to our 13-year-old Black Lab and I didn't think I was quite ready to let another dog into my heart yet, much less a small, fluffy one.  But Lucy changed my way of thinking and though she's been with Sweet Tea for much longer, even Sweet Tea will admit that Lucy has become a "Daddy's Girl."

Recently some good friends, "Lockpick" and Sandy, moved to St. Louis with their two dogs, Oscar and Coots.  With Lockpick out of town, Sandy and the dogs joined us for this weekend's match.  This is what we call "foreshadowing."

Sweet Tea with a car full o' dogs

This weekend's match would be played at the Jefferson Barracks historic site and hosted by our good friends, the St. Louis Unions.  This would be our third match with the Unions this season, and we came into the match holding a record of 3 victories and 1 defeat in our head-to-head matches, while also sporting a current nine game winning streak.

Unions 1st Tender, "Mayhem" Moushey goes over the
ground rules with the two club nines.

This would also represent the second week in a row that we had our full outfield together, as both 'Hawkeye' and 'Pitchfork' were available.  We also had our substitute scout, 'Moonlight,' back from an injured leg. Since it was roughly 135 degrees, it would be nice to have an extra scout to rotate.  In other news...I got a new bat ya'll!

Hand crafted by the Pheonix bat company to
my specifications, this Birch wood bat is 35
inches long and weighs 36 ounces.

The Unions' field is a "bowl" with the outfield area on an incline.  This is both a blessing and a curse to outfield scouts.  It allows you to play a little deeper and get more generous bounds on most fly balls, but it also makes it very difficult to retreat on deeply hit balls because you're running up hill.  Something I would learn in the first game when the Unions' scout "Noodles" turned on a ball and drove it over my head in left field.  Even with a generous first bounce, running up hill I could not quite reach the ball to make the out but was able to hold Noodles to a double.

Pitchfork catches a fly ball and returns it to the infield as
the Unions' runner retreats to first.  You can see the "bowl"
that the Unions' field sits in.

Coupled with the bowl effect and a sun-baked, hard ground, our scouts had a more difficult time than normal and the first game was a very tight contest most of the way, with us taking a 6-4 lead into the bottom of the final inning...which was when all hell broke loose.

Lucy and her 'baby-faced assassin' look.  You can't trust this face.

Sweet Tea and Sandy were sitting under some tall shade trees just outside the foul pole down the left field line.  The dogs were sedate.  The ladies were sedate and trying to stay cool on a hot, summer day.  And just then...SQUIRRELS!!!  Before Sweet Tea knew what was happening, Lucy was off in a flash!

"Hair flyin' in the wind...no one can catch me!"

While she initially lept off of Sweet Tea's lap to chase the squirrels, once she realized she was free of anyone's grasp, she made a bee-line for the open field, dodging ballists, cranks, and any other innocent by-standers.  She did laps around the outfield, laps around the infield, totally enjoying her new-found "star" status...all eyes were on her, this small, fluffy, white streak.

Lucy's "star" turn in the ball game, with Sweet Tea in hot pursuit!  

She finally tuckered out and made her way off of the field and was captured by another 'crank' when Lucy went over to greet their dogs.  But she was the talk of the game at that point, and I may hear about it for some time.

The game itself turned at that point as well.  The Unions slapped enough hits together in the final inning to tie the score at 6, held us scoreless in the extra frame, and tallied an ace on a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the inning to claim victory, thus ending our nine-game win streak.

Fielding a ball more cleanly in the second game.

The second game would remain close between the two teams as well, but in the fifth inning, some poor play by the Unions, followed by some timely hitting by us (including a two run double into right-center by yours truly) would allow us to claim an 8-5 victory and split of the double-header.

Mayhem tries to corral a poorly thrown ball.  We would take
advantage to tally four runs in the frame.

With my new birchwood bat I would reach base safely in five of my six times to the plate, so I think it's definitely a keeper.  The team's record now stands at 21-7 going into next week's major tournament, The Ohio Cup.

As for Lucy...well, she spent the rest of the day on lockdown.

Aunt Sandy and Lucy...on lockdown.

Dixie

Cranks!

As base ball grew in popularity in the latter part of the 19^th century, it could be at once a gentleman’s game and a competition that would draw the attention of the gamblers, the roughnecks, and other ne’er-do-wells.  Witness the role of the arbiter in the early game:  He only called hits fair or foul, not balls and strikes, nor outs.  He kept the game gentlemanly by fining players for coarse language or unsportsmanlike play, but otherwise had little impact on the outcome of the game. 

"Judge" Showmaker asks the female cranks for permission
for the players to roll up their sleeves and "show their elbows."

Nevertheless, the local fans (as fans will do) placed their fate on the backs of the local nine and would express their displeasure with any call or play that did not go their way.  Since most of them also likely had money riding on the outcome of the game, unruliness from the fans was quite common, especially in big games.  Thus they became known as ‘cranks’ for their cranky behavior towards anyone who was not for the hometown nine.  In the 1866 portrait below, notice the detail in the cranks in the foreground, engaged in gambling, drunkenness, pick-pocketing, fighting, and general cavorting:

Magee's portrait of "The Second Great Match Game For
The Championship' between the Philadelphia Athletics
and the Brooklyn Atlantics.

This past weekend we traveled across the mighty Mississippi to Moose Meadow, the home field of the Belleville Stags, where we would play a round robin mini-tournament against the Stags and the St. Louis Brown Stockings.  The Stags, despite being a young organization, have one of the best groups of cranks amongst the local teams.

The Belleville Stags and a portion of their 'cranks.'

We go to great lengths to engage the cranks in the game and explain the vintage game to them; the differences in rules from then to now, and how the game that they are watching is not only different than a “beer-league” softball game but is accurate to a time period in our nation’s history.

The aptly named "Chatterbox" Waller explains the intracacies
of the game to the Perfectos "cranks" at Lafayette Park.

Cranks tend to come in many different sizes…

And species…

Sometimes they mingle...

But they never waver in their passion for the game…

…and speaking of the game…we came into the tournament riding a 7-game win streak and a record of 16-2 since the beginning of June.  In addition, this weekend would be the first time all season that our entire cadre of scouts (outfielders) would actually be together.  So far this season, myself, Pitchfork, and Hawkeye, had not played a single game together as a unit.  I had played matches with both of them, and they had played matches together, but we had never…all three of us…been on the field at the same time until this weekend.  Because the rules of 1860 allowed for outs to be recorded if balls were caught on the first bounce, having three scouts who could track down balls quickly gave us the advantage of taking hits away from teams on a regular basis.  To finally have all three of us playing in the same match gave our hurler (pitcher) a wide margin for error.

Danger, Turnpike, Pitchfork, Dixie, Hawkeye, and Hammer.
This was the first game that Pitchfork, me, and Hawkeye had
played the scout (outfield) positions together all season.

And that was quite literally how it played out.  A bad hop in right field that glanced off of Hawkeye’s hand and got behind both of us, led to the only ace (run) that we would surrender in 14 innings of play.

Our one miscue all day, a bad hop off of Hawkeye's hand
which got past us both and led to the only run that would be
scored against us in two games.

We put enough runs together to win the first game over the host Stags by a margin of 6-1, and then shutout the Brown Stockings in our second game to earn a second win, 3-0. 

Our best hitter, Hammer, will plate two runs with
a double to left to give us the lead.

Hawkeye and Cyclone score on Hammer's double as I watch.

After driving in Hammer, I look on from second base as
Stoney gets ready to drive me in for an ace as well.  Four runs
in the second inning would be all the scoring we would need.

We have now won nine straight games and 18 of our last 20.  We have this weekend off and just one match remaining before we head to the “Ohio Cup,” a tournament of 30 vintage teams from around the Midwest that is the largest gathering of vintage base ball in the entire country.  This is the 23^rd year of the Ohio Cup but my first…and I am very much looking forward to the competition and comraderie!

Dixie

This Glove Business...

This past weekend we played against our rivals from right across the Mississippi River, the Belleville Stags. The Stags are a young organization but filled with experienced players, so they are no "easy out" despite us beating them in both games. The Stags also have quite the marketing department, complete with programs and apparel for purchase.  It is this apparel that brings me to the topic.  They have T-shirts which display the Stags emblem on the front and a quote on the back. This is how the quote reads:

     "This glove business has gone a little too far.  True, hot-hit balls do sting a little at the opening of the season, but after you get used to it, there is no trouble on that score."  -- Bid McPhee

Obviously that is a very apropos quote for a vintage base ball team since the most obvious difference between the vintage game and the modern game is the lack of gloves.  But it got me to wondering: "Just who was Bid McPhee?"

Voted into the Hall of Fame in 2000...
101 years after his final game

There are many interesting things about Bid McPhee.  He is one of only three Hall of Fame players in history to have played his entire career with the Cincinnati Reds (Johnny Bench and Barry Larkin are the others). To this day he holds the Major League record for most putouts by a Second Baseman for both a career and for a single season.  And to add even more context to those records, you must consider the sentence that reads "...THE LAST SECOND BASEMAN TO PLAY WITHOUT A GLOVE..."  As it turns out, McPhee finally agreed to use a glove for his last four seasons (1896 - 1899) and in his first season using a glove, set a mark for fielding percentage (that is...percentage of fielding "chances" without an error) that stood for the next 29 years.  That is a remarkable career no matter how you look at it.

But the wording got me wondering some more...that is a very specific statement: "the last second baseman.' So, back to the google machine I went to find out if Bid McPhee was the last PLAYER to play without a glove.  And the answer is...it depends.

Jerry Denny is listed as "the last position player to play his entire career without a glove."  Denny played from 1881 to 1894, retiring a full two years before Bid McPhee put on a glove.  But technically, the mark is still accurate since McPhee did not "play his entire career" without a glove.  But then, I started thinking of the specifics of Jerry Denny's mark: "the last position player..." meaning that some pitchers were still playing without gloves after Denny, and perhaps even after McPhee.
 
Curious, I went back for some more research.  The closest I can gather is that the last actual player to have played a game without a glove was this man:

Joe Yeager was a Detroit Tigers pitcher in 1902 when he split his hand open in a game against Boston.  The Newspaper account from the game included a notation that read:

   "Pitcher Yeager's split hand is due to the fact that he refuses to wear a fielding glove."

Yeager did not pitch well for the Tigers in 1902, finishing with a record of 6-12, but he stuck with the Tigers as a position player after that, playing 107 games at Third Base.  He is listed in Tigers history as "the last Tiger to play without a glove."  Although this is not exhaustive research on my part, I think it's safe to assume that Yeager played the field without a glove after Bid McPhee retired and if he's not the actual last player to have played gloveless, he has to be close.  He finished his career right here in St. Louis with the Browns in 1908.

Back to Bid McPhee and his quote about balls stinging at the opening of the season but not being much trouble after that.  It's one of the questions I'm asked most about catching without a glove, and I'd have to say that McPhee's quote is pretty accurate.  This is a photo of my hand after my first match:

Stings a little on the pad of the thumb.

But now, four months and 24 matches into the season I don't even notice it.  The trick is that you learn to cradle the ball into your hands...

Concentrate...concentrate...cradle.

...and you learn how to use the rules of the game to your advantage...

A good scout will kill the opposing team's offense.

The rules in 1860 (and on up until around 1867) allowed for an out ("hand down") to be recorded if the ball was caught by a fielder on the first bounce (or "bound").  This rule makes a significant difference in playing the outfield, as a speedy, sure-handed outfielder (or "scout") can take hits away from even the best hitters ("strikers").  A ball driven into the alleys between the scouts can still be turned into a hand down if the scout can get there and cradle it into his hands on the first bound.  My team, the Perfectos, uses this to our advantage regularly by playing our quickest and most sure-handed fielders (Hawkeye, Pitchfork, and myself) in the outfield.  Runners can still advance on the bases once the ball hits the ground but it allows us to play for sure outs on the bounds and only resort to catching the ball in the air when there is a runner on third with less than two hands down.  Even then, once you learn how to properly catch the ball, errors ("muffs") are rare and bruises even rarer.

Nevertheless, Bid McPhee, Jerry Denny, and Joe Yeager, you have my profound respect for sticking to your gloveless guns as the game was changing around you.  Huzzah!

Dixie

Catch Up...

Haven't posted much in the last few weeks which might lead you to believe that things have slowed down, or the team has hit a rough patch.  Au contraire!  In reality, Sweet Tea and I have been quite busy and traveling quite a bit which has made it a little tough to get the time to sit and put thoughts down on paper.  And the team...well, after starting the season with a worrisome 2-4 record, we have rebounded to win 14 of our last 16 matches.  So let's, y'know...

Yeah, it's corny, but whatcha gonna do?

In my last post we were just getting ready to hit the road to Indianapolis.  We had about a three-hour drive before a noon-time game, so we decided to lounge around a bit Saturday morning before hitting the road, the way we do every Saturday...

Sweet Tea and me; couldn't be happier!

So, there I was, effing-off leisurely browsing through my emails looking for the directions to the field in Indy when I stumbled upon this sentence from one of the Indy Captains for the first time:

     "Remember that our friends from St. Louis have the time zone change heading this direction..."

Suddenly, instead of chilling, Sweet Tea and I went into freak out mode!!!  WE'RE LATE!!!

"fuuuuuuuuuuucccc...."

We threw all of our shit belongings in the car and drove like hell but we made it in time.  In time for what, you say?  In time to sweat my balls off playing three games in 100 degree weather.  And believe me when I tell you that wearing heavy woolen uniforms in 100 degrees is no picnic.

Me, Stoney, Moonlight, Danger, Cyclone, Turnpike, and Hammer,
sweating in the shade on a 100-degree day in Indy.

We were victorious over the Lumbermen and Hoosiers but dropped the final game 7-2 to the Indy Blues in what could only be described as an IDGAF game.  Did I mention how hot it was?

Cyclone trying to cool off

We followed up the Indianapolis tournament with double-header road victories over the Springfield Long Nine and the St. Louis Unions.  Last weekend we stayed on the road with a match in Decatur, Illinois against the Rock Springs Ground Squirrels.  The Squirrels are one of the pioneers of vintage base ball in the midwest and an organization that the Perfectos used to pattern themselves when they began play 13 years ago.  The Ground Squirrels field is cut out of prairie grass, which forms the edge of the outfield.  It's a beautiful field but outfielder must be careful to keep any flies or bounds from going into the prairie grass, or you will lose the ball quickly.

Beautiful Trough Ballfield - home of the Ground Squirrels

We won the coin flip for the first game and chose to be the home team.  I trotted out to my customary position as center scout and before the first pitch, the left scout "Pitchfork" and I were discussing playing deep flies with the prairie grass.  I opined that I thought the way the wind was blowing would keep any balls hit to left well short of the boundary.

You can see how thick the brush is behind me.

Naturally, the Ground Squirrel's first batter "Click" made a liar out of me and hit a ball deep to left.  Pitchfork tracked it back towards the prairie grass border and just as it settled into his hands, his feet hit the prairie grass and he tumbled backwards into the weeds, dislodging the ball from his hands, and sending it flying into the deep brush.

"It's right here somewhere..."

An easy trot around the bases for "Click"

Still can't find it, as Chatterbox joins me, Hammer, and Pitchfork.

All Hands On Deck!!!

How many does it take to find it? Nine, of course.

After that I thought it might be a long day for the scouts but we were able to recover and our hurlers "King" and "Danger" kept the Squirrels away from deep drives most of the day.

It really was a beautiful day...and a gorgeous ball field!

I had a good day striking myself, with six hits in nine times to the plate, including a couple of doubles.  Now striking fifth behind "Hammer" and "Chatterbox" I have more opportunities to drive in runs.

No high-fives in this gentleman's game.  Turnpike greets
me as I "tally my ace."

After the rather inauspicious debut, giving up the home run to the first batter on the first pitch, we rebounded nicely, claiming victory in the first game 17-3 and taking the second game 12-3.

Doffin my cap to the scorekeeper and "cranks" (fans) as
I ring the bell to register my ace (run).

We seem to have come together nicely as a team here during the summertime and hope to keep up those winning ways this weekend as we take on our friendly rivals from across the river, the Belleville Stags.

Dixie