Brian Doolin has broken his right pinky every summer for the past eight years, and he expects to break it again this summer. But it’s a price he’s willing to pay to play second base for the Deep River Grinders, a Hobart, Indiana, team that’s been playing 1860s-style vintage baseball since 1991.
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Whether playing or just talking about vintage baseball, Doolin and his teammates adhere scrupulously to period vocabulary. Where modern teams have fans, the Grinders have cranks, some 250 of whom attend the average home match, which is played on a meadow, not a diamond, in Deep River County Park in Hobart. What modern baseball calls a catcher, the Grinders call a behind. Runs are aces or tallies, foul balls are foul tics, and pitchers are hurlers. Even the cheering is period: a good play is met with lusty shouts of “Huzzah!”
“In a way, this is like a vaudeville act,” says Dave Stutler, a 49-year-old upholsterer who hurls for Hobart. “No way do you cuss. If you do, you get fined. You don’t spit. You don’t scratch. You have to be a gentleman at all times. If you’re not a gentleman, then the umpire fines you a day’s wages”–a preinflationary 25 cents. According to Stutler, who goes by the nickname of “Tacker” on the meadow, the team pays out $3 or $4 in fines every match. Mild violations of the rules are part of the fun: the Grinders have one player who makes a point of spitting every game just to draw the umpire’s ire. “I don’t know what the umpire does with that money,” Stutler says. “I think he buys himself a good dinner at the end of the year.”
The differences Shearer refers to extend beyond the game’s vocabulary and equipment. Formalized by the National Association of Base Ball Players in 1860, the rules by which the Grinders play state that a fly ball caught on the first bounce is an out. A ball that lands fair between home and first or third but then bounces foul is still a fair ball. Then there are ritual differences that aren’t in the rules: When a Grinder scores an ace, he must stop by the tallykeeper’s table, raise his right hand, and request that his run be recorded. Once that’s done, he’s entitled to ring a bell on the table.
The Grinders played their first match of 2003 against the Chicago Salmon on March 29, on the east lawn of the Chicago Historical Society. A polite but decisive victory for the Grinders, the match was part of the society’s exhibit “Chicago Sports! You Shoulda Been There.” Although their schedule has yet to be finalized, they’ll play about 35 more games this summer. Information about the club is available from the Deep River County Park at 219-947-1958. For information about the Vintage Base Ball Association, visit its Web site, www.vbba.org.
