Play Ball!: NJ’s Vintage Base Ball Teams

Jersey’s vintage teams turn back the clock on America’s national pastime.

Flemington Neshanock’s Gerard D’Angelo makes like the Bambino in a 2013 game against the Hoboken Nine at New Bridge Landing in River Edge.
Photo by Chuck Solomon

Philadelphia and New York might boast their storied Phillies, Yankees and Mets, but the history of the national pastime cannot be written without the Garden State.

As any die-hard fan knows, Hoboken hosted the first organized baseball game on June 19, 1846, at Elysian Fields, described by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns in Baseball: An Illustrated History as “a grassy picnic grove” nestled by the Hudson River. The New York Knickerbockers—not the basketball team—lost to the creatively named New York Base Ball Club in a 23-to-1 squeaker.

Given New Jersey’s deep roots in the sport, it’s no surprise that a group of history-loving baseball enthusiasts suit up every spring to resuscitate the memories of seasons long past.

Meet the Flemington Neshanock and the Hoboken Nine. Their members spend weekends playing baseball games with the equipment and rules that were in common use in 1864 (and sometimes 1873). The teams are part of the Mid-Atlantic Vintage Base Ball League, which also includes the Elizabeth Resolutes.

Adherence to past practice rules the day in these delightfully anachronistic affairs. For one thing, it’s “base ball,” not baseball. The pitchers deliver the eponymous sphere underhand. The ball isn’t wound as tight as today’s durable marvels, so it grows softer as the game progresses. Catching it bare-handed is not that big of a deal. Bats used in vintage games are heavier, with thicker handles; sometimes they are painted with rings representing the team colors.

“I love the game because it’s pure and unpolished,” says Brad “Brooklyn” Shaw, who founded the Flemington Neshanock Baseball Club in 2001. “You get to be part of a game that was changing yearly, and you begin to understand why it evolved how it did. You also get to be with other people who appreciate the history of the game.”

Nostalgia has its challenges. Frank “Walnuts” Stingone, who became manager of the Hoboken Nine in 2012, loves recreating history. But churning around bases (stuffed with rags or old clothes) that slide loosely on the grass? That’s annoying. And the bulky old-time uniforms are not exactly ideal for Jersey summers.

“In the 19th century, they were all heavy wool,” says Shaw, a Manalapan resident who is a software manager for a major bank. “To be more comfortable and to address wool allergies, many clubs—including mine—have opted for heavy cotton, which is a little more breathable. Both are extremely nasty on a hot summer’s day, but we try to bear it for history’s sake. Playing 19th-century baseball in polyester or shorts and t-shirts would not be right.”

On the other hand, tempers rarely get heated. In the mid-19th century, baseball was “a gentlemen’s game,” says Sam Bernstein, a longtime umpire of the vintage variety who has written extensively about the baseball’s past. Base ball was a social event and its participants “were out there for exercise and to have fun,” he explains.

In that genteel era, the umpire was a man to be respected, not a target of abuse. The position was assumed by someone of stature in the community, Bernstein says, such as a judge or the local mayor, who would call balls and strikes in his Sunday best. The players made the safe and out calls at the bases. But when the players disputed a call, the umpire stepped in with a final judgment—and that was that.

“I am there for one reason, and that is to move the game along,” says Bernstein, who away from the field is a social worker for the Elizabeth Board of Education. Calling balls and strikes was conceived to do just that, he says. And the games do move along. Vintage games run nine innings, but rarely last beyond two hours. That’s plenty of time for spectators to appreciate baseball the way it was played in the days long before millionaires with pumped-up muscles and inflated egos held sway.

“We love to engage people who come to the games,” Bernstein says, “so it becomes a learning experience as much as a sporting experience.”

Pete Croatto profiled sports anchor Russ Salzberg in the November 2013 issue.

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