Talk About Old School

As reported by Sports Illustrated: The Hartford Senators and the Pittsfield Hillies, a pair of vintage baseball teams, will play on Saturday night in Pittsfield, Mass., wearing jerseys from the late 19th century and using rules from 1886. They'll be playing in Wahconah Park, which dates to 1892 and is one of the oldest minor league stadiums in America. Each batter will get seven balls and three strikes; there will be no balks; no foul strikes; no hit batsmen awarded first, and fielders will use gloves not much bigger than their hands. Only one umpire will call the action. It's all part of a baseball Fourth of July celebration for the city of Pittsfield, which recently gained newfound acclaim with the discovery (by baseball historian John Thorn) of a 1791 bylaw containing the first known reference to the game in North America.