posted on vbbnewtown.com

 

By Ray Shaw

Any suggestion that baseball is not a game of inches nor that contemporary vintage base ball isn’t a valuable laboratory for the early baseball historians to understand The Game’s evolution need only study the exploits of the Sandy Hooks over the past seven days to see how a matter of inches likely changed our National Pastime, forever.

Only a week prior, the Newtown Sandy Hooks with great skill and determination successfully prevailed over the Essex Nine in an ‘1861’ match in Massachusetts and only seven days hence relinquished their newfound confidence and knack in an ‘1876’ match against their old nemesis, the Hartford Senators.

Even though the Sandy Hooks captain ‘Pudgey’ Dieckman fielded a formidable squad of capable ballists on Saturday, somewhere in the intervening week and 15 years (of rule changes) the luster of the previous week’s success was supplanted by the realities of the past.

As the blazing sun baked the asylum turf around the makeshift diamond ‘Mule’ Snyder manned the box for the hometown nine mowing down the first three strikers in the visitors order. Intuitive fielding and ball handling skills made short work of the visitor’s efforts.

‘Eskimo’ Quinn, hurling for the upstate visitors, took the box for Hartford and relinquished the first ace of the match on a well struck two-bagger by ‘Pops’ Pendergist. This along with subsequent hits by his mates harkened back to similar successes on the previous weekend.

As the game progressed, a series of all too familiar fielding miscues by the home nine, allowed the Senators to rebound with no less than one ace per inning to pull steadily ahead of their downstate hosts with a lead of 6 to 3 by the end of five stanzas. No matter what adjustments the Hooks seemed to make in the field they could not overcome their inability to handle the ever-bounding ball. The Hooks had not only succumbed to the gremlins of the past but, thanks to a horrendous seventh inning when the Senators scored seven additional unanswered runs, the match had fallen decisively in the favor of the visitors.

Admittedly, the Senators had unleashed a few healthy barrages (including back to back home runs to the depths of the yard in the same inning) but the fact remained the avoidable errors that plagued Sandy Hook fielders throughout the match and season had a devastating affect on the team’s performance at the dish and demeanor on the field. The Hooks seemed to be trying so hard not to fail that they had become hopelessly inept at all levels of play.

The 1861 game, as it was played in the day and against the Essex Nine on the previous week, was characterized by underhand pitching, single bound putouts and gloveless play. The 1861 game features a loosely wound 9.75 circumference ball which makes gloveless play highly feasible. The 1876 game is a considerably faster game distinguished by side-arm pitching, a smaller (9.25”circumference), more lively ball and the advent of protective equipment that enables higher pitching speeds and more aggressive play, as experienced in Saturday’s game.

Was it possible that a simple 1/2” change in the ball (and subsequent changes abolishing the bound rule and sanctioning the use of gloves) had so influenced the game that a seemingly capable team, full of composure and skill had become incapable of attaining a semblance of their former brilliance? Based on the Sandy Hooks experiences on Saturday, it’s evident that such changes to the ball and the rules had a great impact on the team as well as teams that played more than 130 years before.

The match ended by a decisive 15 to 3 margin for the Senators, ‘huzzahs’ were exchanged and both squads retired from the midday sun.