Baseball history brought to life by museum

I went back in time last weekend.

On a balmy summer day, beside The Henry Ford museum complex, I suddenly found myself in 1867 as I sat on a Michigan hillside in a place called Greenfield Village.

I watched 18 Americans, who were still nursing wounds from a War Between the States, play a game in the grassy field below.

The musical stylings of The Dodworth Saxhorn Band — which had led players and fans who fell in behind them in a pre-game parade through the through the Greenfield Village streets to the field — floated through the air as accompaniment to the spectacle on the field.

The announcer, whose eyes were shielded from the sun by a tall hat, roamed the road in front of me.

Occasionally, I noticed his bespectacled gaze drift downward from the field onto the pages of a small, blue book.

The book, Henry Cadwick's 1867 Haney's Base Ball Book of Reference, presented the revised rules of the 22-year-old game which became America's pastime.

Base ball, as it was known at the time, featured a few familiar rules which have stood the test of time. It also included a number of differences from the version people know today.

These were enthusiastically explained by the announcer with the help of the blue book at his side.

The first and most immediate difference I noticed was the umpire. He was first on the field, and protective equipment was not part of his attire.

Instead, he wore a three-piece suit.

The teams lined up along the third-base line before they broke formation and stepped onto the field.

The Walker Tavern Wheels, who were the visitors and defending league champions, were clad in black shoes, high black socks, grey cloth collared shirts and gray cloth hats.

The host, the Greenfield Village Lah-De-Dahs, were dressed in white cloth hats and uniforms with red socks. The ensemble also included a necktie, which was the first I'd ever seen included in a baseball uniform.

It was at about this time I noticed a second glaring difference between the Lah-De-Dahs and their modern counterparts.

Not a single fielder wore a glove.

The announcer spied one in the crowd on the left hand of a small boy.

I soon learned baseball gloves were considered an unmanly bad habit in 1867, when the fledgling game was played almost entirely barehanded.

The umpire who led the teams onto the field was the only one present, for the players called themselves safe or out on the honor system. He was called upon to make rare judgements when players could not decide for themselves. 

He also reminded the pitcher he must lob the ball across the center of the plate by rule so the striker may put the ball in play, and he also reminded the striker he must waste little time in making contact with the ball.

This picked up the pace of the game considerably, and in my far-from-official estimation played a nine-inning game in about an hour less than the modern version.

The longest delays were when the train cut across the track which ran across the back of the field — at which time a pause in play gave each player time to remove his hat and give three hearty cheers to the passing locomotive — or when one striker hit a line drive into the woods beyond the track and the ball was lost.

The ball consisted of yarn and India rubber covered with leather. It cost 50 cents, or half a day's wage in 1867, and went to the victorious team by rule after the game.

 The Wheels got the ball after they won by a few runs, or "tallies" as the umpire yelled each time a player crossed the plate.

When the ball was presented to the Walker Tavern captain, the Lah-De-Dahs raised three hurrahs to their opponent. The victors then returned the salute in a show of sportsmanship from days gone by before the teams walked off of the field and back into the present day.