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"The way the game was meant to be played!" has special meaning when teams of Gold Country Vintage Base Ball get together. It's more than the old-fashioned uniforms that players wear from the 1880s; it's the spirit, sportsmanship, etiquette -and, yes, some of the outlandishness that characterized the country and the game at that time.
In the inaugural 2006 season, the Crushers and Miners enjoyed a banner year, playing games in eight different counties, in two AAA minor league parks (Sacramento and Fresno), an exhibition at San Quentin Prison, and hosting the first-ever California Vintage Base Ball All Star Festival (with all five teams from Bay Area Vintage Base Ball participating). After the Miners dominated the 2006 season, the Amador Crushers won the first "California Cup" in 2007 and went on to represent the west coast at the Vintage Base Ball World Championships in Massachusetts, taking third place in this national tournament. In 2010, the Mudville Nine from Massachusetts traveled to Stockton, CA to play a contest against the Amador Crushers for bragging rights to the location of Mudville, made famous in Casey at the Bat.
After two new teams joined the Amador County Crushers and Mother Lode Miners as members of GCVBB in 2007, the Preston Nine learned the hard way what it's like to field a team of muffins for the third season. In 2007, the Sierra Highlanders (before the Yankees became, well, the Yankees, they were known as the Highlanders) and the Rancho Murieta Bandits became only the eighth and ninth vintage teams on the west coast. The Highlanders spirited squad was able to wrestle away the GCVBB Championship from the Crushers in 2009. In 2010, it was the Rancho Murieta Bandits taking the GCVBB crown, and the Cal Cup, followed last year by a late season run by the Amador Crushers to defend the Cal Cup for Gold Country Vintage Base Ball.
The field is 'regulation' base ball, 90-foot bases, but with a pitcher's box a few feet in front of where today's mound is found. The gloves are little more than leather garden gloves, with no webbing, the ball looks like today's sphere but a little lighter and softer (and softens up as the game goes on) and bats are thick, wooden timbers that can weigh over 40 ounces. The catcher's equipment does not include shin guards and the glove for this position (known as the 'behind') is webless and small. Pitching speed is dictated typically by how much pain the 'behind' can absorb behind the plate. However, most hurlers rely on quick pitches, breaking stuff and pitching from inside the box, one side to the other.
Because there is no infield fly rule, because runners can be called out for not hustling to or back to a base even after a walk or foul ball, because the hidden ball trick is an important strategy and because the pitcher can balk to first, at will, the game is fast-paced and exciting. It is also a game where the umpire - although the sole arbitrator of the game - can also involve the players and even the fans (called 'cranks' in this period) in helping with the calls, under 'the gentlemen's rule'). Still, this did not stop cranks from shooting guns off in the air
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