Ganymedes travelled to Gettysburg for National 19th Century Base Ball Festival

For the first time the Oregon Ganymedes Base Ball Club took part in the Gettysburg National 19th Century Base Ball Festival located on a farm adjacent to the Gettysburg National Military Park in eastern Pennsylvania.

It was the team’s longest road trip ever (736 miles one way from Oregon) in the club’s 20 year history. This historic rules base ball event is the largest vintage base ball festival in the country with 30 participating teams coming from 15 states that was held over the weekend of July 20-21.

Most of the Ganymedes players and their families arrived prior to the festival on Thursday or Friday in order to tour the Gettysburg National Military Park, Civil War museums and other historic sites.

It was an experience that the team will never forget. For the first time the Ganymedes played by 1864 rules base ball that allows unrestricted base stealing and sliding and the opportunity to play east coast vintage base ball clubs from Maryland, Delaware and New York. The festival was held on five fields on the mowed pasture of a private farm. The fields were rough and bumpy with hay bales serving as team benches and no fences, just the way vintage teams like it.

Each participating club played two matches each day and the captain of the team had to umpire other matches in between games. I umpired games between clubs from New York, Massachusetts, Delaware and Pennsylvania.

We had our first game against the Talbot Fair Plays Base Ball Club of Easton, Maryland before a crowd of over a hundred onlookers. It took the Ganymedes a few innings to get over their big tournament jitters and found themselves behind by a score of 7-0.

They then settled down and overcame a big deficit to come back and tie the game 12-12 late in the game thanks to a big inning that started with Kevin Stafford’s huge home run that just seemed to roll forever. In the last inning, the Talbot Fair Plays had clutch hits that the Ganymedes could not answer and Oregon fell by a final score of 15-12. It was an action packed game between two very good vintage clubs that the crowd appreciated right up to the final out.

We had our second game against the New York Mutuals Base Ball Club of Bethpage, New York. The Ganymedes led most of the game and then their bats went cold and the Mutuals caught up, tied the game 7-7 and then won it in the final inning with their last at bats 8-7. Oregon played well the first day of the festival but ended up with losing both games in the final inning.

The first game on Sunday morning was against the Lewes Base Ball Club of Lewes, Delaware. It was a great back and forth contest that Oregon finally broke open with a big 5th inning where they strung together hit after hit and scored seven runs.

The next inning Ganymedes catcher, Tom Lesniak had a beautiful tag out at home that ended a Lewes scoring threat and Oregon won 17-11.

Tom has become one of the best catchers in vintage base ball” said the Ganymedes captain. He had four big tag outs at the plate during this festival as well as throwing out numerous opposing players attempting to steal bases.

By the time Oregon got to their final game of the weekend at 2 p.m. with the strong Elkton Eclipse Base Ball Club of Elkton, Maryland, the weather was reaching 90 degrees with high humidity.

The Ganymedes had already played three hard games and the teams legs and energy levels were about gone. Their final game got a late start, it was hot and Oregon still came from behind in the 5th inning to take a 8-7 lead.

Everyone on our 10-man travel team played their hearts out. But then Elkton put on an 1864 rules clinic on how to hit, steal and score and had two big innings in a row and went on to win the game 21-8.

Everyone on our team stole bases and did lots and lots of running during four competitive games. This was an 1864 rules base ball festival, not a tournament and we played hard against teams that only ever play 1864 rules.

I’m glad we got the opportunity to come east and be part of this event...this experience is only going to make us a better club later this season.

The Ganymedes next game will be at 1 p.m., Sunday, Aug. 4 starting at at Lions Park in Malta, when they take on the McHenry County Independants Base Ball Club of Crystal, Lake, Illinois.

The team travels to Michigan Aug. 10-11 to compete in the 21st World Tournament of Historic Base Ball held in Greenfield Village at The Henry Ford Museum.