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Baseball

The earliest known mention of baseball in the United States is a 1791 Pittsfield, Massachusetts bylaw banning the playing of the game within 80 yards of the town meeting house. The first team to play baseball under modern rules were the Knickerbockers of New York City.

The club was founded on September 23, 1845, as a social club for the upper middle classes, and was strictly amateur until its disbandment. The club members, led by Alexander Cartwright, formulated the "Knickerbocker Rules", which in large part deal with organizational matters but which also lay out rules for playing the game.

One of the significant rules was the prohibition of "soaking" or "plugging" the runner; under older rules, a fielder could put a runner out by hitting the runner with the thrown ball. The Knickerbocker Rules required fielders to tag or force the runner, as is done today, and avoided a lot of the arguments and fistfights that resulted from the earlier practice.

Writing the rules didn't help the Knickerbockers in the first competitive game between two clubs under the new rules, played at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey on June 19, 1846. The self-styled "New York Nine" humbled the Knickerbockers by a score of 23 to 1. Nevertheless, the Knickerbocker Rules were rapidly adopted by teams in the New York area and their version of baseball became known as the "New York Game" (as opposed to the "Massachusetts Game", played by clubs in the Boston area).

In 1857, sixteen New York area clubs, including the Knickerbockers, formed the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP). The NABBP was the first organization to govern the sport and to establish a championship. Aided by the Civil War, membership grew to almost 100 clubs by 1865 and to over 400 by 1867, including clubs from as far away as California. Beginning in 1869, the NABBP permitted professional play, addressing a growing practice that had not been permitted under its rules to that point. The first and most prominent professional club of the NABBP era was the Cincinnati Red Stockings.

Professional baseball was built on the foundation of the amateur leagues that preceded it. Interest in baseball as a spectator sport had been nourished for more than 25 years when the first professional league began operation. The National Association fielded nine teams in 1871, and grew to 13 teams by 1875.

The National Association was short-lived. The presence of gamblers undermined the public confidence in the games, and their presence at the games combined with the sale of liquor quickly drove most of their crowds away. Following the 1875 season, the National Association was replaced with the National League. Previously, players had owned the teams and run the games, but the National League was to be run by businessmen. They established standards and policies for ticket prices, schedules, and player contracts.

How does a knuckleball work? The pitcher grips the ball tight to his palm - thumb on one side, ring finger on the other. His index and middle fingers curl over the top, so he touches it with his fingertips, nails, or knuckles. The pitcher then pushes the ball forrward with his fingertips, so it takes of with very little rotation. And as any major-leaguer will tell you, it's faster than it looks - 70 mph for optimum movement. As the ball moves forward, the air flowing around the slowly rotating stitches creates a huge wake. And within that wake are crazy swirls and pressure variations unique to a knuckler. Thrown properly, anything can happen: The ball can change speed, dip suddenly, or shift left or right, moving as musch as 18 inches off its line … or one inch more than the width of home plate. Str-r-r-ike!

The turn of the century brought another challenger, the American League, which started play in 1901. They raided most of the National League’s best players. In their attempt to meet the challenge, the National League owners turned on each other. A court injunction impaneled a three-man commission to run the league, and they found a way for the two-leagues to co-exist peacefully.

Through the first decade of the twentieth century, baseball remained a game of strategy. The so-called "dead ball” provided few homeruns. The game relied on contact-hitters, bunting, and base-stealing for its offense. The adoption of a ball with a cork center in 1911 change the game dramatically. Forty years of batting records began to fall, and the popularity of the game began to explode.

The Roaring Twenties were a great time for the United States and for baseball. A huge gambling scandal in 1919 brought sweeping reforms, and in the nation’s largest city, a legend was born. George "Babe” Ruth had been a successful pitcher with the Boston Red Sox, but the New York Yankees bought his contract and made him an outfielder. He was the most tremendous hitter the league had ever seen. Ruth revolutionized the game with his prowess as a homerun hitter. He ushered in an era of economic prosperity for baseball, and became one of the most popular individuals in American history.

Minor League Baseball

The Lake Monsters is the wonderfully named team that brings Class A Minor League Baseball to Vermont each summer. The historic stands have been fixed up without being altered or replaced, giving the field, which opened in 1906, a classic presence. The outfield walls are filled with freshly painted advertisements for local businesses that want to be associated with the minor leagues.

Credit the revival of Minor League Baseball - sparked in part by the movie Bull Durham and in part by the enduring charm of the game itself - for the transformation and preservation of Centennial Field, one of the oldest parks still in use today, and for the construction of dozens of new baseball stadiums in midsize and smaller cities. Even as the major leagues are booming, garnering record attendance and television revenues, so are the minor leagues, whose fans are flocking to see their local favorites in ever-increasing numbers. The precision of the minor leagues’ play does not match that of the major leagues, but the passion does.

It doesn’t hurt that a night at a minor-league park costs far less than a trip to Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, or any other major-league venue. “Minor League Baseball is one of the most popular attractions in America right now. In 2007 it drew more than 45 million fans throughout the country, and I think a lot of it has to do with affordability,” says C.J. Knudsen, general manager of the Lake Monsters. “It’s tradition, it’s our history, and it’s fun to come out to the ballpark. You spend five bucks for a kid’s ticket and you catch a baseball game, and you’re guaranteed to get an autograph or a high five from one of the players. In our case, we’re fulfilling the needs of baseball fans in Vermont, upstate New York, and parts of Canada. The support is amazing.”

Minor-league games have something of a carnival atmosphere: Team mascots work the crowd and entertain with between-innings shenanigans such as sack races, dancing contests, hula-hoop games, and sing-alongs. But the family-oriented frivolity masks the serious nature of the competition. This is where would-be major leaguers must prove themselves against others who may be just as good.

The players with something special, with nearly superhuman skills and dedication, may move up and win multimillion-dollar contracts, but most will fall by the wayside, forced to start looking for a more conventional career after having spent several years chasing an elusive goal. “The pressure they face is unbelievable, especially for the rookies in their first year of professional baseball,” says Knudsen, whose job duties have included filling ketchup dispensers and making sure the aging clubhouse is skunk-free. “They need to understand that this is their job, not a high school or college team. If they don’t perform well, they’re going to get fired. Everyone is trying to reach the majors, so the competition can get pretty fierce.”

Most of the players in the minors were superstars in high school and college but now find themselves playing against people of similar ability. Their managers, often retired major leaguers with distinguished careers and who themselves dream of managing in the big leagues, are looking for intangibles. Does sheer desire translate into patience and skill and self-improvement? Does the player explode in anger after an error or a strikeout and make the same mistake again and again? Does he hustle in the middle of a slump? And can his body hold up to the killer pace of playing day after day after day for a long season punctuated by bouncy bus rides, cheap food (meal money is about $18 per day), and a never-ending series of bland hotels?

Hollywood has romanticized baseball in movies such as Kevin Costner’s Field of Dreams, but often, in the real world, Field of Broken Dreams would be more like it. This is particularly true for teams that have no formal affiliation with a major-league squad, like the Bridgeport Bluefish. Most of the Bluefish players are castoffs who’ve been let go by higher-level teams because of injury or poor play. The only true star is their manager, former major-league standout Tommy John, a crafty left-handed pitcher who won 288 games and who may still make it into the Hall of Fame.

Watching the Bluefish take batting practice in the impressive new Harbor Yard stadium, a cornerstone in the plan to revive this aging New England city, John says each of the players is trying to convince major-league scouts that he deserves another shot at the big time. “We’re a second-chance league,” says John, a friendly, still-fit, articulate man whose own long career depended on the second chance provided by the pioneering 1974 elbow-reconstruction surgery now known in medical journals as Tommy John surgery. “These are guys that played in affiliated baseball and were released for whatever reason and still think they can play. So our mission is to try to get them back into higher-level baseball. You make calls. Hopefully, a ball club like the Yankees or the Mets will say, ‘Gee whiz, we’re looking at this kid; he can help.’ The Yankees signed one of our players before he ever threw a pitch for us."

The players learn the fundamentals here, and they are also taught to respect, and cultivate, the fans. Many major-league players have become aloof over the years, insulated by their agents and by their million-dollar deals, but minor-league players realize they have to reach out to each and every paying customer. John says this is particularly true for independent teams, like the Bluefish, that have to pay their player salaries without help from a wealthy major-league organization.

Many in the stands are young boys and girls learning about the game, and minor leaguers are taught to do everything they can to make these visits the start of a lifelong baseball habit. “We try to accommodate the fans,” says John, who has been in the game more than 50 years. “After the games on Sunday, we stay out on the field and sign autographs for half an hour. Kids run the bases, we line up in the dugout, and they can come in and talk and get autographs. You have to do things differently here -- you really have to promote it, because you’ve put these guys out on the field and a lot of people have never heard of them, so you have to make the players more personable to the fans.”

The strategy seems to be working, judging from the constant stream of fans pushing through turnstiles. Many of those attending say they have come to prefer bush-league ball to the glitzier major-league games. “I’m hooked on Minor League Baseball,” says Garrett Starasinic, as he stands in line to buy a $2 hot dog at Dodd Stadium in Norwich, Connecticut, where the Connecticut Defenders play. “It’s an amazing sport, and the fans are great. It’s very community-oriented, and you’ve got a close-knit group of people who rally behind the local team. It’s more down-to-earth than the major leagues. It’s nice to see all the fans out here. There are a lot of good players out there - it’s such a step up from high school and college - and it’s a privilege to be able to watch them on the way up.”

GREGORY KATZ is a contributing editor to American Way. His work has also appeared in Esquire and GQ.
NO MINOR FEAT

THE STADIUMS MAY BE SMALLER (AND THE SALARIES, TOO), BUT MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL IS HELPING AMERICA RECONNECT WITH ITS FAVORITE PASTIME.

BY GREGORY KATZ
PHOTOS BY NATHANIEL WELCH

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