At the end of every vintage baseball match, the teams line up for the traditional post game ceremonies. Each captain makes a brief speech, thanking the fans, the umpire and the venue host before calling on his team to cheer the opposition. Regardless of who speaks for the Neshanock, our post game speech always begins with "On this most splendiferous day for baseball." While some might think otherwise, splendiferous really is a word, first used with its current meaning in 1843. But even though I've read countless nineteenth century newspapers, I've never encountered it anywhere outside of Neshanock post-game speeches. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when walking on York Street in Gettysburg last Friday night, I saw the below sign, somewhat obscured, outside Upper Crust Pizza. According to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary splendiferous is something "extraordinarily or showily impressive" In turn, impressive has been defined as "the power to excite attention, awe or admiration."
It's interesting that this usage of splendiferous first appeared about the same time organized baseball got started in New York City. But regardless of whether or not the word was ever used to describe the early game, it would seem almost every baseball game should have at least one splendiferous moment. Seeing the sign when I did was good timing because there's no better place to look for the splendiferous on the baseball field than the 2022 Nineteenth Century National Baseball Tournament/Festival in Gettysburg. This year's event was both a tournament and a festival since the host Elkton Baseball Club of Maryland decided to try a new format combining a single elimination tournament with the festival approach of prior years. All 32 teams started out in the tournament and upon losing a game, moved into the festival. It was a challenging event to run because of the uncertainty of not being able to plan the schedule beyond the first round. Uncertainty leads to problems, but regardless of the blips along the way, the Elkton Club and their helpers ran the event in their usual efficient style, minimalizing the impact of any difficulties.
Flemington's opened the tournament against the Dirigo Club of Maine. The Neshanock had one previous encounter with the Maine men, back in 2016 at the Cornish Race Track in the Pine Tree State. Writing about that match, I noted that the Dirigo team seemed "ideally built" to play 1864 baseball since regardless of their position in the batting order, every striker hit effectively into the gaps. While the Dirigo lineup at Gettysburg may not have been identical, those words would prove to be all too prophetic. Flemington did lead 4-2 after two innings aided by an excellent defensive play in the top of the second. Dirigo had runners on first and third with two out when the runner on first broke for second. Neshanock catcher, Dan "Sledge" Hammer made what appeared to be a throw to get the runner at second, but the ball was intentionally cut off by shortstop Tom "Thumbs" Hoepfner. "Thumbs" then threw to Joe "Mick" Murray at third to catch the somewhat surprised Maine runner for the third out.
The Neshanock ready for action at Gettysburg
Although the Neshanock were off to a good start, Dirigo took control primarily due to their good hitting, aided by some Neshanock muffs. Dirigo led 11-5 in the bottom of the sixth, but the Neshanock weren't done yet. With one run across, Flemington had the bases loaded. Danny "Lefty" Gallagher blasted a tremendous hit well beyond the defense for a grand slam home run. The blow cut the margin to one and Flemington was back in the game. Although Dirigo had lost most of their lead, the Maine men were not fazed, tallying four times for a five run advantage that proved to be unsurmountable. Any chances of a Flemington comeback ended in the bottom of the eighth with an extraordinarily impressive play by the Dirigo catcher. The Neshanock had runners on first and second with none out when the next batter struck out. Clearly knowing nineteenth century rules, the catcher intentionally dropped the third strike which meant that, unlike modern baseball, all the runners had to advance or be forced out. Dirigo took full advantage, making a triple play and putting an exclamation point on a well deserved l5-11 victory. There was only one word that could adequately describe the play - splendiferous.
Joe "Mick" Murray enjoys a Field of Dreams moment during the Lewes match
With the loss, Flemington entered the festival, beginning with a match against the Lewes Club from Delaware. The prospect didn't auger well for the Neshanock since like Dirigo, the Delaware team is very effective at 1864 baseball, witness a 5-1 win over the Neshanock a year ago at the same event. After Lewes tallied once in the top of the first, however, a walk, followed by four straight hits led to five Neshanock tallies. Flemington added five more in the third and eliminated any doubt about the result with a nine run fourth. After managing only one run a year ago against Lewes, the Neshanock tallied 36 times, demonstrating once again that logic has little to do with baseball. Flemington was led by "Sledge" and "Lefty" each with five hits while Chris "Sideshow" Nunn, Gregg "Burner" Wiseburn, Joe "Mick" Murray and Jeff "Duke" Schneider had four apiece. "Thumbs," Rene "Mango" Marrero, Mark "Gaslight" Granieri, Dave "Illinois" Harris and Sam "Ewing" Ricco had three each. The "extraordinarily impressive" (read splendiferous) element in this game was that "Sideshow," "Lefty" and "Sledge" each earned a five at bat, clear score.
Sam "Ewing" Ricco keeps on eye on the game while wondering what lurks in the fog
The only bad part about Flemington's victory was that the match didn't end until after 7:00 leaving about only about 12 hours before Sunday's first game with the Keystone Club of Harrisburg. The early morning sun wasn't a problem, however, because the game began amidst dense fog followed by some brief, but heavy rain. Fortunately, the conditions didn't hamper Flemington's offense which tallied 21 times in the first three innings on the way to a 31-9 victory. "Lefty" and "Mango" had five hits each, followed closely by "Mick" and "Duke" with four apiece. Right behind them were "Sideshow," "Sledge," Matt "Fly" Nunn, "Ewing" and Ken "Tumbles" Mandel, each with three. Three Flemington strikers earned clear scores, with muffin Tony Panera, joining "Sideshow" and "Lefty." The weekend was Tony's first venture into vintage baseball and we hope he will come back. "Lefty" had 10 hits in the first two festival games, an especially splendiferous achievement considering he suffered a hand injury in the tournament game that prevented him from playing in the field.
Elkton president Bruce Leith (blue shirt, white shorts) meets with team captains to rearrange Sunday's schedule to allow teams to play new opponents
Thanks to the splendiferous work of Elkton president Bruce Leith, the Neshanock were able to play their final game against the Lisbon Tunnelmen, a new opponent and, to put it mildly, an extremely worthy one. The Connecticut team dominated from start to finish, combining flawless defense with solid hitting for a well earned 11-1 victory. Even though outplayed, the Neshanock still managed a splendiferous moment of the unique variety, thanks to Ken "Tumbles" Mandel. Although "Tumbles" got only one hit and hit into two force plays, he "earned" a clear score equal, at least in the scorebook, to the five at bat achievements of the three Neshanock in the Lewes game. To record a clear score, a player cannot make any outs, but under the scoring rules of the day, an out on a force play is charged to the runner, not the batter. That kind of clear score is out of the ordinary enough to attract attention and, therefore, worthy of being deemed splendiferous. The weekend proved by any doubt that splendiferous is "a word" for which there is still plenty of "time" in the grand old game.
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