Skip to content

Top hat and tails: a Vintage Base Ball story

on April 7, 2011

Last Sunday afternoon, Ed Rovera passed along MacArthur Boulevard in his Sunday best, from his shiny black top hat all the way to his dangling coattails. But don’t let his dapper apparel fool you: he wasn’t headed to church or a wedding, but to Mosswood Park, where he would serve as umpire for a baseball game. Though his choice of attire seems strange, it was completely normal in the late nineteenth century, which is the style he is trying to capture. Rovera is an umpire for the Bay Area Vintage Base Ball League, a group of five teams that play according to the rules of baseball as written in 1886. On Sunday he was refereeing a game between the San Jose Dukes and–the hometown favorites–the Oakland Colonels, who ultimately won by a wide margin.

To hear the players and fans explain what draws them to this old-fashioned version of the game, check out Oakland North’s radio coverage of the Colonels.

1 Comments

  1. Gary O'Maxfield on April 8, 2011 at 3:23 am

    Huzzah! Keep it vintage, boys!



Oakland North welcomes comments from our readers, but we ask users to keep all discussion civil and on-topic. Comments post automatically without review from our staff, but we reserve the right to delete material that is libelous, a personal attack, or spam. We request that commenters consistently use the same login name. Comments from the same user posted under multiple aliases may be deleted. Oakland North assumes no liability for comments posted to the site and no endorsement is implied; commenters are solely responsible for their own content.

Photo by Basil D Soufi
logo
Oakland North

Oakland North is an online news service produced by students at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and covering Oakland, California. Our goals are to improve local coverage, innovate with digital media, and listen to you–about the issues that concern you and the reporting you’d like to see in your community. Please send news tips to: oaklandnorthstaff@gmail.com.

Latest Posts

Scroll To Top