Discover best deals on many one of a kind collectible sports memorabilia with great savings! Lots to chose from; Boxing, Football and more.

Vintage Clubs

Vintage Base Ball is baseball presented as being played by rules and customs from an earlier period in the sport's history. Games are typically played using rules and uniforms from the 1850s, 1860s and 1880s. more...

Home

Markers

Other Golf Memorabilia

Prints

Horse Racing Memorabilia

Ice Hockey Memorabilia

Motor Sport Memorabilia

Olympic Memorabilia

Other

Other Sports Memorabilia

Rugby League Memorabilia

Rugby Union Memorabilia

Subbuteo

Tennis Memorabilia

Wrestling Memorabilia

Vintage base ball is not only a competitive game, but also a reenactment of baseball life similar to American Civil War reenactment. Players dress in uniforms appropriate to the time period, in fact many teams are direct copies of teams that existed in the late 1800s. The styles and speech of the 1800s are also used while playing vintage base ball.

Rules and game play

Although rules differ according to which playing year is being used, there are some mostly common rules differences between the modern game and vintage base ball. In rules years prior to the 1880's, the ball is pitched underhand in a manner suitable to the batter, or \"striker\". There are typically no fences as base ball is mostly played in fields and green spaces. However, obstacles (e.g. trees, building, etc.) often come into play. In many of the rules sets the ball can be played off of one bounce to get a striker out. Catching the ball can be very difficult because no gloves are used.

Because limited descriptive evidence exists to illustrate what live gameplay may have looked or sounded like, reseachers and vintage \"ballists\", or ballplayers, engage in an ongoing interprative discourse about how the game may have actually appeared. Interpretations of points of play such as such as how frequently runners would steal bases, when sliding first became common and what it might have looked like, how strikers would hold or swing the bat, how the umpire's authority evolved, and how players would have conducted themselves on the field are continuously debated and refined. One commonly held interpretation is that gameplay was marked by a spirit of gentlemanly sportsmanship. Despite the insistence on \"gentlemanly play\" among modern vintage clubs, the true 19th Century game was marked by rough play and cheating was common so long as the umpire failed to see infractions. Fewer teams in the 1900's and the lack of a players union left little room for \"gentlemanly play\" in the true old time game. Contemporary vintage ballists will often observe this custom through friendly gestures such as cheering good plays made by opposing players, assisting umpires with making calls at bases, and conducting organized cheers for opposing teams (and often for the umpire and \"cranks\", or fans) at the conclusion of a match. Though these pleasantries demonstrate good sportsmanship, they are far from historically accurate.

The Vintage Base Ball Association ( ) is an international association of vintage ball clubs which promotes the game through conferences, publications, message boards and listservs, educational resources, and links to leagues, clubs, tournaments and related activities in the U.S. and Canada.