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!