May 17 Pioneers at Meddowe (Longmeadow, MA)

Today we're playing in Longmeadow, MA. The Meddowe team likes to play some of their games with 1860 rules (basically softball rules only even more boring) and we've agreed to play a doubleheader - one 7 inning 1886 rules game and one 7 inning 1860 rules.

The first game is a closely played game. They get up by a couple of runs and we come back with 3 to take the lead and then extend it to a 4-2 lead going into the top of the 7th. (We're the home team again thanks to Buck's magnificient streak of winning coin tosses). Turk pitched the first 2 innings and Slappie the next 2 and I'm supposed to close it out.

My first two innings went fine except my arm is hanging a little - nothing too bad though and the adrenaline is getting me through it ok. The first batter in the top of the 7th leads off with a well hit ball to left. Unfortunately our left fielder took a step or two in before realizing how well hit it was so it sailed over his head for a double. The relay throw back in gets by the second baseman and the runner advances to third. Oh well. We have a two run lead so forget about him and get three outs. The next batter is a lefty who I struck out two innings earlier on a forkball. He was a pretty tough out that inning and after a bunch of sliders and fastballs I'd finally gotten him. This time I start him with a slider and he rips it deep down the right field line for a triple.

Now the tieing run is on 3rd with no outs. We bring the infield in looking to keep him from scoring. About 3 pitches later I through him a high inside fastball that gets by the catcher and he scores. We almost had him at the plate but the throw from the catcher was a little to the first base side of home. A perfect throw might have had him (or he would have broken my hand sliding into it).

Tie game now but at least the bases are empty. Not for long though. They eventually score 2 more runs, this time due to errors: A near collision between short and centerfield that results in the centerfielder dropping the ball and my own drop of a pop up between the mound and home. There may have been another error as well - I can remember. It was definitely not our best display of fielding.

Bottom line- we lose 6-4. I get the blown save and loss and my arm is really hanging now.

Game 2:

We are not up for the 1860 rules game at all after blowing the lead in the previous game. The basic rules are:

Underhand pitching with no balls or strikes called. Just lay it in there for the hitter.
Batted balls caught in the air or on one bounce are outs.
No gloves at all. Just bare hands.
The ball is softer and more bouncy than a regular baseball.
One step "gentlemen's" leads.

The results of these rules is that most balls can be caught pretty easily on one bounce. Basically any fly ball to the outfield is an out unless it's really a gapper and even then it has to be a line drive.

We give up 5 runs quickly in the first before we've really recovered mentally from the first game. After that inning the game went very quickly and we eventually decided to play a full 9 inning game. It probably didn't take much more than an hour. We lost 7-1. If you throw out the first inning where we were getting our bearings it was a 2-1 game. Not bad, but we all (The Pioneers) vow never to play 1860 rules again. It might as well be softball which is definately NOT baseball.