19th Century Baseball Memorabilia

[mr2686]

Ben, that's very cool. Is the ball you use dead? If so, what's it like to hit?

[IronHorse2130]

Thanks, Mike! The ball is a bit larger than a modern ball but not quite as hard. It's probably about as a hard as a clincher softball. We use the same ball for the entire game so it does get softer by the end. If you make good contact you can give it a ride though!

To help you get an idea of how the ball can travel we played two games at Doubleday Field last year and I was playing left field. Nobody hit one over but I was catching balls about 25 feet from the wall (it's 296 feet down the left field line). So guys were hitting the ball 250 feet +.

[ksfarmboy]

Here's a couple of mine. 6 1888 scorecard covers and an early Kansas dual team photo. If you look closely at the team photo you can see presentation cases for a baseball and bat.

[doug.goodman]

Clint - Those scorecards are beautiful.
Doug

[ksfarmboy]

Thanks Doug.

[Old Hoss]

Clint- I second Doug's comment. Those are great Cincinnati scorecard covers! Quick question, though: have they been cut from the full scorecards?

All best,
Charles

[ksfarmboy]

Charles, yes they are just the covers unfortunately. On a side note the guy I bought them from said they came from the comedian Jonathan Winter's estate. He didn't have any documentation to back it up but I don't think it would have added any to the price. Kind of neat though.