Vintage Baseball at McCoy on May 19 & July 28

Vintage 1884 Baseball comes to McCoy Stadium on Sunday, May 19 and Sunday July 28. The Providence Grays will take on the Olneyville Cadets before the Pawtucket Red Sox game at 1:05pm on Sunday, May 19th. And on Sunday July 28, the Providence Grays will take on the New Hampshire Granite. The Vintage Baseball games will begin at 11:00am and run until 12:00pm.

The Providence Grays are devoted to the 1884 game and this features notable differences from modern day baseball. Players use no gloves in this era, with the exception of the catcher. Six balls are required to earn a walk. Foul balls are not strikes and a hit batsman does not earn a walk to first base, There is no pitching mound. Instead, there is a pitching box and the pitcher does not stand on an raised surface while beginning his motion. The pitcher throws from only 50 feet away. Batters may request a high or low pitch and this means that the umpire must call two different strike zones during the course of a game.

The ball has a leather cover with a cork center and it does not fly as far as a modern baseball. The Grays opponents are the Roxbury Nine and they also specialize in the 1884 game. Both teams have experience playing earlier and later styles of the 19th Century game and period accuracy is the main goal of all vintage teams.