Lewes Base Ball Club keeps the sport’s vintage hallmarks — and spirit — alive

By Jeanne Shook
Photograph by Scott Nathan
From the June 2024 issue

Rogers “the Rajah” Hornsby, one of baseball’s greatest hitters, once remarked, “People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”

For many baseball fans, their love for America’s national pastime borders on obsession. But for a special subset of aficionados and players, the game also provides lessons in history, offering glimpses into the 19th century, particularly the Civil War era when the sport gained in popularity.

In 2012, an elemental love of the game, combined with his passion for history, led Lewes resident and former Lewes Historical Society executive director Mike DiPaolo to establish a vintage baseball club. Since then, Lewes’s “boys of summer” have engaged, entertained and educated the local citizenry, playing the game they cherish while employing the rules of 1864 baseball.

A former high school player and avid fan, DiPaolo believes that the vintage version of the sport is “such a fun, accessible way to tell people about history. … Sure it’s baseball, it’s recreation — today it’s big business — but back then, at least here, it was social.”

Currently the Delaware Community Foundation’s vice president for Southern Delaware, DiPaolo is the Lewes Base Ball Club’s founder, manager and captain. The man whose baseball nickname is “Oyster” admits that recruitment during the club’s formative years was difficult. Initially relying on friends and acquaintances to build a team, “things began to gel” after two years, he says. Most of the current players reside in the Lewes area, and while some of the team’s new members are in their 20s, the average age range is 30 to 40. But no matter their life stage, a common denominator is their passion for the game.

After his first vintage-style game, left fielder Joe “Bats” Walls was “pretty much hooked,” he recalls. Likewise, for infielder John “Squirrel” Kennedy, joining DiPaolo’s newly formed club was a no-brainer. Kennedy describes vintage baseball as “raw and genuine. … It’s baseball the way you probably remember playing it as a kid.” Both Walls and Kennedy have been LBBC players since day one.

After relocating to Lewes from Pittsburgh in 2023, Alex “Hay Bale” Langley was in search of a softball team, having played in a moderately competitive league for 15 years. He learned about the vintage ball club after posting an inquiry on social media. During his first vintage game as a spectator, and following a brief chat with DiPaolo, Langley ended up keeping score and shortly thereafter found himself on the roster. In a later game, he earned his nickname after chasing down a foul ball behind home plate, demolishing a stack of hay bales used as a backstop. “Unfortunately, I didn’t make the catch,” he says.

For 82-year-old Warren “Yankee” Miller — a team member, until last year — playing professional baseball was a childhood dream that became reality in 1965. For the next year, Miller distinguished himself as a batter at the professional level, playing in the minor leagues for both the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. But an ongoing shoulder injury would end his professional career in 1966.

(One of Miller’s most prized memories is the day Red Sox legend Ted Williams dropped in unexpectedly after a game. Considered one of the greatest hitters in baseball history, the Hall of Fame slugger proceeded to give an awe-struck Miller and his teammates an impromptu coaching lesson on batting technique and strategies.)

A baseball veteran at all levels for six decades — amateur, semi-pro, professional and coaching recreational teams — Miller has been impressed with the level of talent, camaraderie and competition on display by the Lewes team. With rules designed to keep the ball in play, “vintage baseball isn’t boring,” he says. “… In order to play you better be ready. You better not be relaxing out there.”

Players learn quickly that competitive camaraderie is the name of the game — even when it means playing for the opposing team. If the opponent is short a player, a Lewes team member might be called upon to fill in, or vice versa. “All of our teams try to help each other out,” explains Walls. “We’ve pulled fans out of the stands to help out, too.” (The “stands” are actually lawn chairs in foul territory, allowing spectators an up-close and personal view.)

A member of the Vintage Base Ball Association and the Mid-Atlantic Vintage Base Ball League (comprising approximately 20 teams), Lewes competes primarily with opponents from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware.

What began as a friendly exhibition game 12 years ago with Delaware City’s Diamond State Base Ball Club has evolved into an intense upstate/downstate rivalry. The state’s two vintage teams battle it out each year for the coveted Delaware Cup, decided by a best of three series. This year, Lewes will defend its 2023 title when the series wraps up on June 8. (Check the website on page 68 for a schedule of those games.)

‘Extraordinarily challenging’

One obvious difference between the modern game and its vintage counterpart is the archaic two-word term at the heart of its nomenclature: base ball. While both “baseball” and “base ball” consist of nine players, nine innings and three outs each half inning, that’s where the similarities end. The 1864 rules followed by vintage teams dictate that pitchers throw underhand; balls caught on one bounce constitute an out; foul balls are not counted as strikes; and no gloves are allowed — or any type of protective gear. Also, overrunning first base is not permitted. And any player exhibiting foul language, or “ungentlemanly behavior, such as spitting or cursing,” risks a fine from the arbiter (the forerunner to today’s umpire).

“When Mike [DiPaolo] asked me to be the ‘arbiter’ for a vintage baseball game, I told him that I never played baseball,” recalls Dave Shook. “He immediately said, ‘Perfect. … You won’t be confused by the rule differences.’”

(Disclosure: Dave is this writer’s spouse.)

“There’s no instant replay. It’s a game of honor,” says Mark “Zap” Evans, a self-described “baseball-type guy” who played the sport throughout middle and high school, then coached a senior club team. “The rules are different, so all the knowledge you’ve learned over time, realistically, is not accessible or usable.”

The call of safe or out is decided by the players. If they disagree, the arbiter must settle the dispute, “at which point it becomes clear that these players are extremely competitive athletes,” says Shook. “As arbiter, you must be prepared to go from an atmosphere of fun and good-natured ‘trash talk’ to intense competition.”

While “vintage” might imply that the game is less physically demanding than the modern game, the players disagree. “You get out there and try to catch without a glove!” challenges DiPaolo. Miller, who retired his cleats at the end of Lewes’s 2023 season, has proof of the occupational hazard associated with the no-glove rule. “The last [part of] the ring finger of my right hand doesn’t work properly. … Other fingers have been damaged over the years.”

“It’s extraordinarily challenging if you haven’t done it in a while,” says Kennedy. “The first time you hit the ball and you’re running towards first, you just remember getting there much faster back when you were a kid.”

Evans admits the bodily toll a doubleheader can take, but even “after three hours of game time for an ‘older gentleman,’ you just want to go back out and do it again.”

Fields of dreams

There are several contributing factors that convey authenticity, starting with the team uniforms. The design for Lewes’s gray-and-blue flannel garb and short-billed caps was based on a photograph of a late-19th-century Lewes team (the striped socks were added for a signature look).

Even the players’ monikers are a throwback to the game’s longtime propensity for nicknames: Stan “the Man” Musial; Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio (also known as the Yankee Clipper); and Babe Ruth, born George Herman Ruth, who had several other nicknames, including the Sultan of Swat, the Great Bambino and the Colossus of Clout.

The game is played on an open field, such as farmland or other pastoral settings, just as when baseball originated. The Lewes team’s home turf at the Villages of Five Points is “a grassy open space with a really nice vista,” says DiPaolo, who is often on the lookout for opportunities to play in unique venues. His personal field of dreams? “Wouldn’t it be fun to play on the National Mall [in Washington]?” He even tried to schedule a tripleheader in New York’s Central Park, but “couldn’t find a date that worked for everybody.”

One of the team’s favorite venues is Schroeder Farm in Gettysburg, Pa., site of the annual Gettysburg National 19th-Century Base Ball Festival, taking place this year on July 20-21. Now in its 14th year, the event draws approximately 30 vintage clubs, primarily from the East Coast but as far away as Michigan and Wisconsin.

The game’s inextricable link to the Civil War is undeniable. Both Union and Confederate soldiers played as a diversion. After the war, they took the sport back to their respective communities, where its popularity grew and spread throughout the country.

The historic nature of the Gettysburg site inevitably evokes a connection to the past. Walls describes it as “the mecca of our vintage base ball league.” Says Evans: “It’s awe-inspiring to be there. These farmers would travel from their farms to play baseball [160 years ago] … and here we are driving miles to meet together — and play baseball.”

Looking back — and ahead

As the Lewes Base Ball Club enters its 13th season, it continues to build upon a legacy that began with the earliest recorded game in the town’s history. That matchup took place in February 1874 against Milton, although there is no record of the outcome. In a bizarre coincidence, that same year marked the birth of Ebe T. Lynch, whose link to the game led to a tragic ending in 1916.

Lynch was a Lewes restaurateur who also served as the town’s postmaster and fire chief, as well as captain and coach of the local baseball team. In 1916, dentist William Parker shot and killed Lynch upon learning that his nephew had been cut from the roster. This summer, Lewes’s gray-and-blue will pay homage to Lynch with the installation of a memorial plaque honoring his contributions both as a prominent citizen and base ball enthusiast.

Lewes’s ball club remains true to its baseball roots, enlightening spectators about bygone days, but entertaining them as well. “It’s good baseball across the league,” says DiPaolo. “… We try to strike a balance between wanting to be competitive and having fun.”

That latter sentiment is one the great DiMaggio touched upon when he announced his retirement in 1951. “When baseball is no longer fun, it’s no longer a game,” he said. But Kennedy sums up his team’s philosophy more broadly — they’re “a group of like-minded guys that just want to play baseball in any way, shape or form.”