Americans Find New Joy in an Old-Fashioned Game

09/23/2013

Watching and playing baseball is a popular American pastime. Some fans are focusing on the "past" part.

From VOA Learning English, welcome to This Is America. I’m Mario Ritter.

And I’m Kelly Jean Kelly. This week, we hear how some people are learning to play the game of baseball the old way. And we report on efforts to help former prisoners build new lives.

For many Americans, the long, hot days of summer mean just one thing: baseball. Walk through a park anywhere in the country and you are likely to find young people and old people, men and women all playing ball.

Our reporter recently found a baseball game in a park in the southern city of Nashville, Tennessee.

That was the familiar sound of a bat hitting the ball. But this baseball game is not quite the game most Americans know.

“We play the game wearing no gloves, and there’s a few minor rule differences.”

This is vintage, or old-fashioned, baseball. Vintage baseball teams aim to experience the game the way it was played 150 years ago. The game was still young then and just beginning to spread across the country.Am

"Good eye, Trip. Using your peepers!”

Even the language of the game is taken from the 19th century. Michael Thurmon is chief of the Tennessee league. He says modern expressions are not used much in vintage baseball. There are older words for common actions like throw and catch. There are even older words for the basic tools of baseball, the bat and ball.