{"id":1312842,"date":"2019-07-26T11:01:12","date_gmt":"2019-07-26T17:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=984841"},"modified":"2019-07-26T11:01:12","modified_gmt":"2019-07-26T17:01:12","slug":"colorado-vintage-base-ball-league-keeps-old-time-game-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/colorado-vintage-base-ball-league-keeps-old-time-game-alive\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado vintage base ball league keeps old time game alive"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
A vintage base ball player takes a swing during a past Silt Hey Days event.<\/strong>
Post Independent File Photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

BROOMFIELD, Colo. (AP) \u2014 In the 1981 song called \u201cWillie, Mickey and the Duke,\u201d songwriter Terry Cashman pays homage to baseball legends with memorable nicknames, like \u201cthe Scooter, the Barber and the Newc.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, there\u2019s a group of guys playing baseball in Colorado these days who aren\u2019t as famous as the ones in that song, but they got fun nicknames too: Digger, Suds and Texas Mike, to name a few.<\/p>\n

They travel around Colorado playing baseball with rules from an era long before today\u2019s game \u2014 even long before Willie, Mickey and The Duke (Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Duke Snider) stepped onto the field.<\/p>\n

On summer weekends, players from the Colorado Vintage Base Ball Association<\/a> travel around the state and take fans back to the way the game was played in the 1860s, with the uniforms to match. \u201cBallists,\u201d as ballplayers were called back then, wear things like period-appropriate pillbox hats, knickers and shirts with cavalry-style bibs embroidered with logos written in Old English-style lettering.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will find that every last one of us here on the field was actually a thespian of sorts,\u201d said Steven \u201cScorpion\u201d Castellani, the CVBBA commissioner. \u201cWe do this because we love acting. The organization was actually founded by a group of civil war reenactors who basically got tired of pointing guns at one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

Founded in 1993, the nonprofit CVBBA is dedicated to the preservation of the history of 19th century baseball, or \u201cbase ball\u201d, as it was written with two words back in the day. When teams take the field in a CVBBA contest, the group commits to using the rules, language, and playing surfaces from 1864. In a July 4 game in Broomfield, the playing field was full of pebbles, long grass and weeds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were no groomed fields as you see today,\u201d Castellani said. \u201cThere is no pitcher\u2019s mound or hurler\u2019s mound, unless you happen to be standing on a gopher hill. That was the exception to that. The bags (what we call bases now) were usually made of potato sacks or something filled with dirt. The home plate was just that \u2014 it was a plate, like a dinner plate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group said Colorado\u2019s first baseball team, which was called the Colorado Base Ball Club, was formed in 1862, not long after gold was discovered in the state. There weren\u2019t many games played back then because of the Civil War. More teams organized a few years later, including clubs representing mining communities in Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that time, in the 1860s and \u201970s and \u201980s, you had a lot of the mine teams,\u201d said Roger Hadix, who goes by the name \u201cDigger\u201d on the field. \u201cSo in Frisco, Colorado, there was the Kokomo Mine, so they had a team. In Leadville, they had a team that was known as the Leadville Blues. They had money, and in 1882, they were the best team in the state because they could actually pay players from the eastern leagues to come out there and play at 10,000 feet altitude.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a July 4 game in Broomfield, Hadix represented the Star Base Ball Club of Central City, which was formed in 1869 and featured the best players from mining communities. Their opponent, the Denver Blue Stockings, was also an all-star team from the era.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s often a lot of hootin\u2019 and hollerin\u2019 going on during CVBBA games. But it\u2019s all in good spirit. The league prides itself on \u201cgentlemanly and fair play.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re acting as if you\u2019re in the 1860s, so you\u2019ll hear different languages, people trying to be a little more gentlemanly, not charging the mound, not arguing; Disclosing whether you were really safe or out,\u201d said Robert Mitchell, who goes by the Buckeye in the league.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also hard to be super competitive when you\u2019re just not very good at baseball to begin with. In the 1860s, games were often ridiculously high-scoring affairs. A lot of that had to do with the fact that they didn\u2019t play with gloves back then. And neither do players from the CVBBA.<\/p>\n

\u201cAuthentic to the period, people weren\u2019t very good at playing baseball,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cSo there were a lot of errors. No gloves, no experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ballists also use era-appropriate language when they\u2019re on the field. For example, fans used to be called \u201ccranks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re the striker, not the batter,\u201d said Chuck \u201cSuds\u201d Knezevich. \u201cThe behind is the catcher. The pitcher\u2019s the hurler. You\u2019re a base-tender, that kind of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the vintage base ballplayers, like \u201cSuds\u201d Knezevich, have entered into modern-day pop culture. Before a game in Fort Lupton in 2012, Suds and other CVBBA players were standing in a circle, going over lineups. Someone took a photo and it ended up being the cover of the 2014 Phish album, \u201cFuego.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody gave us a call or sent us an email and said, \u2018Have you seen the latest Phish album that came out?’\u201d recalled Knezevich, who is the player wearing suspenders on the album cover. \u201cWe pull it out and, boom . we\u2019re on a Phish album with some of my friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their popularity doesn\u2019t stop with jam bands. The players\u2019 high-spirited play and throwback fashion is a hit with fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like the atmosphere,\u201d said Mikkilynn Olmsted, who was one of about 30 fans who attended the game in Broomfield on July 4. \u201cI like the jokes the players tell. And sometimes they yell out stuff that\u2019s period-appropriate, which is hilarious. So you have to listen.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what makes these guys get dressed up in old uniforms every weekend, run around on rough playing surfaces, and catch baseballs with their bare hands? Well, Mike \u201cTexas Mike\u201d Mikel said it\u2019s for the love of the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tell everybody I\u2019m 70 years old standing here talking to you,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I step on the field, I\u2019m 12 again. And then when I step off the field I\u2019m a 70-year-old who feels like a 12-year-old\u2019s been running his body\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Information from: Colorado Public Radio, http:\/\/www.cpr.org\/news<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A vintage base ball player takes a swing during a past Silt Hey Days event.Post Independent File Photo BROOMFIELD, Colo. (AP) \u2014 In the 1981 song called \u201cWillie, Mickey and the Duke,\u201d songwriter Terry Cashman pays homage to baseball legends with memorable nicknames, like \u201cthe Scooter, the Barber and the Newc.\u201d Well, there\u2019s a group […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1312842","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-21 08:57:27","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}