"A Time to Every Purpose"

Base ball is a very difficult game to play.  Perhaps it's the sport's unique nature - no clock and the only one I'm aware of where the defense handles the ball.  Regardless of the reason, however, no basketball player or football quarterback would make their respective Hall of Fame, if they were successful only 30% of the time, but base ball hitters who do so are lauded as being the best in the history of the sport.  It's a game, therefore, that's hard to play under the best of conditions and on Saturday, the Neshanock and their guests, the Diamond State Club of Delaware, found out what it's like playing in some of the worst conditions imaginable.  Played as part of Long Valley, New Jersey's green festival, the game took place like many vintage matches on a field that was far from level, but on "grass" that was at least ankle high making every ground ball a challenge.  That would have been bad enough by itself, but steady rain, as per usual not predicted, made bats, balls and hands so wet that it's safe to say there were no easy plays throughout the match.  On reflection, both teams and the umpire deserve a tremendous amount of credit for how, in spite of the difficult conditions, they gave it everything they had and then some.

Photo by Mark Granieri

The Diamond State Club is one of the east's best teams as evidenced by their winning the National Silver Ball Tournament in Rochester, New York only a few weeks ago.  A team that combines good hitting plus solid defense and pitching, Diamond State is not a team to play catch up against, but on this afternoon the Neshanock tried to so on an epic scale.  The game began at 4:08 (more on that later) with what has to have been the worst defensive inning in Flemington history (if there is ever a worse one I don't want to see it).   Diamond State's usual good hitting combined with double digit muffs and walks gave the Delaware Club a 13-0 lead before they even took the field.  The Neshanock, however, quickly got their bats going and aided and abetted by the poor conditions tallied 15 times in the first three innings while holding Diamond State to only four more runs so that incredibly, Flemington trailed only 17-15.  From that point the game consisted of the Neshanock trying to match however many runs Diamond State scored and always coming up a little short.  

Photo by Mark Granieri 

Ahead by just four (nothing on this day) headed to the top of the ninth, Diamond State added four more insurance tallies with two out which was too much for Flemington overcome.  The final score was a hard to believe 37-32 (no football jokes please) in an equally unfathomable two hours and 52 minutes which has to be a Neshanock record, again one I have no interest in seeing matched or repeated.  A few weeks ago, I wrote about a 19th century reporter for the Trenton Evening Times who qualified his box score of a 14 inning game by saying he couldn't vouch to the accuracy because he had run out of paper.  I can now identify with him since my score book got so wet, it was impossible to keep detailed records for the last few innings.  As far as I can tell, Flemington was led by Dave "Illinois" Harris with six hits while Joe "Mick" Murray and Danny "Lefty" Gallagher contributed five apiece.  "Mick" did so, in spite of having to leave early and miss the last three innings.  Also noteworthy were four hits by Tom "Thumbs" Hoepfner and Mark "Gaslight" Granieri plus two home runs by Joseph "Sleepy" Soria.  Congratulations to Diamond State on winning a vintage base ball marathon and to both teams plus our umpire Sam "It ain't nothin' til I say" Bernstein for  their efforts under extremely unpleasant conditions. 

Photo by Mark Granieri

Saturday's scheduled start time of 4:00 was a first in my more than ten years of vintage base ball score keeping.  For the most part, the first pitch of Neshanock matches is supposed to take place at 11 or 12:00 o'clock and I gather that's fairly common place with some club preferring a 1:00 start especially on Sundays.  The atypical start time for the Long Valley match brought to mind a recent discussion about start times on the Historical Accuracy in Nineteenth Century Base Ball Face Book page. The pressing issue or question was the practical one of finding the time most conducive to player participation in second decade of the 21st century rather than the page's primary concern about how things were actually done in the second half of the 19th century.  Like most things, start times didn't happen in a vacuum, there was a reason or reasons for picking that specific hour on that specific day.  Typically, the start time was set for the convenience of a certain group or audience which has changed not just as the game has changed, but as the world around it has changed.  A look at start times in two different eras will, hopefully, illustrate the point.

New York Clipper - August 13, 1864

The place to look for historical start times is, of course, contemporary newspapers, but the Neshanock's score book, a replica of Henry Chadwick's 1868 version provides at least one clue to the 1860's.   Included on the pre-printed format is space to record when the match started and ended, with both listed as p.m. so clearly the late morning start times so popular in vintage base ball were not part of 19th century base ball world or at least not as far as Henry Chadwick was concerned.  Scanning through the New York Clipper for the 1864 season, the most popular match times were 2:30 or 3:00, a little bit earlier than I would have thought.  While some players were certainly paid in those days, few, if any, could support themselves and their families by base ball alone so matches had to be played during their free time of which there was precious little in the 1860's.  The only day off was Sunday when base ball and pretty much every other enjoyable activity was verboten to the point of incurring the wrath of the local police.  As a result time had to be found Monday-Saturday, almost all of which were work days, limiting participation to those with at least some control over their time.  The start times, therefore, were primarily driven by the needs of the players, not unlike the start times of vintage games.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle - October 2, 1916

If we fast forward about 50 years to 1916, towards the end of the Deadball Era, a season I'm very familiar with, start times were even later.  A scan of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle confirms that the typical start time for Brooklyn Dodger games that year was 3:30 which even with decreasing day light after Labor Day (there was no Daylight Savings time), wasn't moved up to 3:00 until the very last week of the season.   According to the paper, sunset the first week in October was around 5:30 so there wasn't a big window of daylight, but fortunately games during the Deadball Era typically lasted less than two hours.  Still suspensions for darkness weren't uncommon, raising the question of why not start earlier.  The answer is that by 1916, game times were driven not by the needs of the players, but those of the fans.  Sunday base ball was still illegal in New York City (until 1919) and this was long before night games so most contests were played when people were working.  As a result the target audience became those who again had some control of their time, (typically middle class office workers) this time not to play, but to watch.  In fact, the start time, plus the two hour or so game, let fans see a game and get home in time for dinner, both saving money and helping to preserve the domestic tranquility.

Photo by Mark Granieri

The late afternoon start times are also evidence of how dependent club owners were on fans who paid to come to the ballpark.  At the time, the owners, or magnates as they liked to be called, had only one primary source of revenue - ticket sales.  Radio and television rights, memorabilia and other things were years away forcing owners to pay much more attention to the needs of the average person with a quarter to spend on a game.  Today, of course, its the opposite, television is the biggest source of revenue and it drives game times as well as other things.  Televised base ball is, of course, a wonderful thing, expanding the game's reach far beyond those with the money and time to attend a game.  However, attending a 2015 National League playoff game on a Monday night that ended after Monday Night Football (can't think of the last time I saw the end of a Monday night football game), made me remember fondly the days when the World Series was played during the day even when school forced us to miss the first few innings.  Of course, no matter the start time, it's the game itself that counts and that's always worth waiting for even under conditions like Saturday in Long Valley.