Finally, I made it to the life of if not a jet setter, then, maybe a border hopper as this morning’s Watertown Daily News proves:
While heckling from the “cranks,” or fans, was not an official requirement of the game, there was certainly plenty directed toward all four teams. Mr. Drinkwater himself engaged in a fair amount of good-natured bantering as umpire and later as a player on the Rochesters, who won their first game against Kingston 9-2 but lost 12-4 in the championship round against the Ontarios… For Alan C. McLeod, organizer of the Kingston team, it was international collaboration that brought his players to the vintage games in the first place. “Obviously there’s a lot of camaraderie. Sackets Harbor got us interested in this two years ago,” Mr. McLeod said. According to the organizer, teams from Canada used to cross over into the States to play baseball with Americans as early as 1870.
Getting whupped 9-2 by the Rochester best nine is not exactly bad when you consider it was the fourth game for the Kingston St. Lawrence Brown Stockings and Rochester has run a weekly program for years. We got tagged for five in the sixth, too. We were down by just one before that. Have I made enough excuses? Need a lighter bat as well. And a bit more work on the fielding. And I shouldn’t have tried for second that one time but they did say that a ball that went into the bush was a double when they meant that a ball that went into the bush and stays in there was a double. I should have done a Billy Martin on those Rochestarians but I was way too out of breath.