The 19th Century Base Ball Clubs of the state of Maryland have announced the location and format of the State Championship Series Tournament that will take place on September 30, 2012. The formation of the Maryland State Championship Series is a joint venture between the Eclipse Base Ball Club of Elkton the Talbot Fair Play Base Ball Club of Easton, the Cecil Club of Chesapeake City, the Arundel Excelsiors and the Chesapeake & Potomac Base Ball Clubs of Baltimore/Washington.
By virtue of clinching the regular season championship, the Elkton Eclipse will host the tournament on September 30th at the Terrapin Station Winery which is located just north of Elkton on Route 213 right before Ricketts Mill Road. Elkton clinched the regular season title with two wins out of three against Chesapeake City and a split with Talbot. Elkton also won two matches over Chesapeake and one match over Arundel. Elkton won the Maryland State Championship the first four times from 2007 to 2010. In 2011, the Cecil Club of Chesapeake City won the title over Talbot who has been to the finals all 5 times.
All of the matches on September will feature games played by the rules and customs of 1864 including replica uniforms and equipment that would have been used by clubs in the 1860s. The first match will start at Noon and matches will go on every 2 hours until the championship match about 4pm. The schedule tentatively shapes up like the following: Noon– Talbot vs. Chesapeake City 2pm– Elkton vs. Chesapeake & Potomac 4pm-Championship and consolation matches.
19th Century Base Ball (or vintage base ball) is played by over 300 clubs in North America. All of the clubs belong to the Mid Atlantic Vintage Base Ball League which stretches from New York to northern Virginia. The largest organizing group is the Vintage Base Ball Association (VBBA) which all of the Maryland clubs are members of (www.vbba.org) All of the clubs use authentic rules, uniforms, equipment and customs to play base ball just as it was in the 19th century. The Maryland clubs regularly play other like clubs up and down the east coast from Washington to Boston as well as other clubs from the mid west. Clubs schedules usually have between 8 and 40 games per year playing from the beginning of April until the end of October.
