Welcome to the official web site of the GCVBB.  During the season, game results, photos and other league tidbits will be posted on a semi-regular basis for all cranks to enjoy.  The 2009 season is now underway, including twelve regular season games per team, all-league exhibitions at the home of the Single A Stockton Ports and San Quentin, the California Cup Championship versus the Bay Area, and a season ending GCVBB tournament.
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The Sierra Highlanders are the 2009 GCVBB Champions!  Facing the defending champion Crushers, it was a tight battle that was settled on two bang-bang plays at home plate in the top of the sixth inning, when the Highlanders posted three tallies to take a 6-5 lead.  Behind the strong arm of hurler Sugar Cain Dwyer, the Sierra squad held off the Crushers  for the last two frames and celebrated their title on the field.  The game featured outstanding hurling, tough defense (particularly Candyman Gandy who continued behind the plate after splitting open the seam between his fingers) and clutch hitting throughout the game.  In the morning game, the Bandits locked up third place with a 10-6 win over the Miners.  The long off-season has now begun for the GCVBB in '09.  Check back occasionally for news about the fifth season of Gold Country VBB!!

"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.

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 our 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.

In 2006, 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).  In 2007, the Amador Crushers won the first "California Cup" and went on to represent the west coast at the Vintage Base Ball World Championships in Massachusetts.  Last season the Santa Clara Stogies from the BAVBB took the Cup.  Gold Country Vintage base ball players (or ballists, as they were called in the 1880s) will again play at the Stockton Ports Minor League Ball Park in June.

The field is 'regulation' baseball, 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 to distract fielders during the game; this is one part of 1880s baseball not 'relived'.  Come on out and join us for a Sunday at the ol' ball park.