COLUMBUS – As they have every summer since 2011, a group of Ohio legislators and a team of athletes who appear to have stepped right out of the pages of a history book will play a game of “base ball” (it was two words back then) as it was played in the mid-19th Century, when the game became America’s National Pastime.
Members of the 133rd Ohio General Assembly — the Capitol Cannons — play their annual exhibition game against the Ohio Village Muffins Tuesday afternoon at 5:30 p.m. on the west lawn of the Statehouse. At stake: bragging rights and the Richard Schuricht Memorial Cup, named for the team’s longtime umpire, Richard “Mr. Always Right” Schuricht.
The event is free and open to the public.
Using vintage “base ball” equipment, the seven-inning game will be played by The Rules and Regulations of the Game of Base Ball adopted by the National Association of Base-Ball Players, March 14, 1860:
The ball is pitched underhanded from anywhere behind the pitcher’s line.
An out is declared if: A hit ball is caught on the fly or the first bound, including foul tips to the catcher or a base runner overruns any base (including first) and is touched by the ball in the hands of an adversary.
Before the game, the Statehouse’s 1st Ohio Light Artillery, Battery A will provide a cannon firing demonstration and discussion of leisure activities Civil War soldiers would have used to pass the time spent in camp.
Formed in 1981, the Ohio Village Muffins were the first vintage “base ball” team in America to play a set summer schedule, and the Muffins also hosted the founding meeting of the Vintage Base Ball Association. In addition to observing the vintage rules, the players wear the plain long pants, white shirt, pill box hat and bow tie that served as the uniform of the 1860’s-era ball player.
At the time the rules of “base ball” were codified, recreational activities, were becoming more ingrained in American society and the game, played by Civil War troops, became popular across the nation following the war.
The first professional “base ball” team – the Cincinnati Red Stockings – played its first game on May 4, 1869.