E25Video: Vintage Base Ball Brings The 19th Century Back To Life

National Assoc of Historic Base Ball Clubs: NHBBC.com Baseball changes completely when you strip away gloves, modern habits, and the assumptions we’ve all carried since Little League and it becomes Base Ball (two words!). We sit down with Tom “Big Bat” Fesolowich, a 30-year veteran of vintage 19th century baseball, coordinator at Old Bethpage Village Restoration in New York, and the longtime force behind the New York Mutuals. He walks us through how “vintage baseball” isn’t theater, it’s competitive ball played under carefully researched rules from a specific year, often 1864, with teams working hard to keep the language, uniforms, and on-field behavior historically accurate. We get into the fan experience first: old benches, blankets, picnics, and a rare setting where you can look around and see almost nothing modern. Then we hit the big shockers, like playing without gloves (Tom has the broken fingers to prove it), using a softer “lemon peel” baseball, and even playing with rules that feel upside down today. One bounce can be an out. You can’t overrun first base. Fair or foul depends on where the ball first hits the ground. Even the umpire’s approach to balls and strikes can start with a warning before anything is called. Along the way we trade nickname stories, talk about keeping anachronisms off the field, and hear an all-time tale featuring Bill “Spaceman” Lee that captures how funny and fiercely competitive this game still is. If you’ve ever wanted a hands-on way to connect with baseball history, this is your roadmap. Subscribe, share with a baseball fan who loves the old game, and leave a review with the strangest vintage rule you’d want to bring back.