Category Archives: Base Ball

Chelsea, Dexter, and Kalamazoo: 22 June 2014

After the exhibition finished, the Monitors took the field against Dexter and Kalamazoo in a slightly confusing but fun three-team match.

There was pre-match music!

The local retirement community brought a small busload of its residents to enjoy the match. The Monitors, the gentlemen that they are, made sure they made it safely to their seats.

Prior to the match, there were two skills competitions. The first was a relay race around the bases; the second was a fly ball-catching contest.

Then the match started.

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Monitors, Merries, and Scrubs: 22 June 2014

Sunday was a day full of vintage base ball in Chelsea! The first match was an exhibition featuring the Monitors, the newly-formed Merries, and the Scrub 9, a collection of hardy locals. Especially notable about this match: it was the Merries’ first game action. Huzzah!

If you’ve been to the Chelsea Alehouse, you may recognize this scrub:

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Monitor BBC: 28 September 2013

The Monitor Base Ball Club of Chelsea concluded its 2013 campaign with an exhibition against a team assembled by the Chelsea Alehouse.

The match drew a good crowd of cranks. This crank made lots of new friends:

His name is Hank. When the match concluded he wandered near the field and got comfortable:

That’s it for vintage base ball in 2013, but Hank hopes to see you at next year’s Monitor matches! (The team would enjoy seeing you there, too.)

Monitor BBC: 4 August 2013

The Monitor Base Ball Club of Chelsea welcomed the Union Base Ball Club of Dexter and the Welkin Base Ball Club of Port Huron to town for a three-team Gatling gun match. I know that sounds violent and potentially harmful, but it doesn’t involve any guns. Just three teams playing base ball.

As usual, the captains addressed the cranks before the match.

Port Huron brought a young Japanese team member who had arrived in the country just a week earlier.

Every ballist has a nickname, and his should come as no surprise: Samurai. He seemed to be having a great deal of fun — he had a smile on his face almost every time I spotted him.

One of the fun things about photographing sports is the potential of catching things you won’t see in real time, like the compression of the ball on the bat.

Sports: fun with physics!

Midway through the match I noticed Honest Jon showing a bat to the crowd. It turns out the bat had cracked during his last at-bat.

Hey look! It’s Mike and Bethany!

Okay, enough of that. Back to base ball.

I just can’t take the next picture seriously.

Great timing; not such a great angle. It’s funny, though, so I’m keeping it.

You can go ahead and caption the next photo yourself if you’d like.

(Don’t worry: he was just throwing to first.)

The Welkins were the last to bat, and they found themselves facing a deficit. Samurai decided to don the rally cap in an effort to bring his team back.

Was the rally cap was part of base ball in the 1860s? Let’s pretend it was.

Here’s a look at the final score:

And here are the clubs:

The Monitors’ final home match of 2013 is on Saturday, August 24. Don’t worry: it’s after the fair parade. Go watch the parade and then head to Timbertown to enjoy some base ball! You’ll be glad you did.

Monitor BBC at Navin Field: 28 July 2013

The Monitor Base Ball Club of Chelsea got the irresistible opportunity to play a match against the Wahoo Base Ball Club of Royal Oak on the baseball field that once was surrounded by Tiger Stadium. Yes, THAT Tiger Stadium. The one that looked like this:

If you know much about baseball, you know the sort of history that took place at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull. The Corner is legendary. Alas, the stadium was demolished by the city of Detroit after the Tigers moved to Comerica Park. However, the baseball field remains, and it’s maintained by a dedicated group of volunteers known as the Navin Field Grounds Crew. On this beautiful July Sunday, they and the Corktown Historical Society welcomed the clubs to Navin Field for an afternoon of historical base ball on a field with more than its share of baseball history.

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Well struck, sir: 14 July 2013

A little over a week ago, the Monitor Base Ball Club of Chelsea made the arduous journey to Greenfield Village to take on the Lah-De-Dahs. What’s that? You seem to recall it was outrageously hot and humid that day? You, sir or madam, are correct. Those of us who chose to be outside that day weren’t breathing oxygen so much as we were inhaling a giant invisible wool blanket that someone had soaked in water and put in an oven. It was like some southern state had decided it had a surplus of terrible summer weather and had decided to export its decidedly unappealing natural resource to some unsuspecting northern state. WE DO NOT THANK YOU.

Anyway. If you’ve never been to Greenfield Village, I recommend a visit — it’s a thoroughly enjoyable historical experience. But we’re here to recount the vintage base ball experience, so…here we go.

The field they use for base ball is spectator-friendly — there are plenty of trees providing shade, and there’s a hill that offers comfortable viewing of the action. There was a good crowd present for the match.

In the above picture, it’s safe to assume anyone in a yellow shirt is a Monitors fan. (I was wearing my yellow Monitors shirt as well, but I didn’t take a picture of myself.) Also, there were more fans to the right.

As if we needed another reminder that Greenfield Village is old-school, this gentleman moseyed past the field during the match:

Fielding a ball without a glove really isn’t that easy. Take a look at this sequence:

My dad made the trip with me to watch the match:

At this venue, right field is cut a bit short by railroad tracks. The tracks carry this:

The tracks run in a loop around the village, and the train pulls a set of cars carrying visitors to the park. When the train approaches the field, the umpire stops the game and the players salute the train and its passengers with hearty huzzahs.

When the game ended, the teams lined up and offered huzzahs to the crowd.

The afternoon ended with a group photo in front of the scoreboard.

If you’d like to catch the Monitors in action, the club has a home match at 2pm this coming Saturday, July 27. The match will be at Timbertown. Come check it out!