Brad “Brooklyn Shaw, founder of the Flemington Nashanock Base Ball Club.
If you’re looking to catch a live baseball game in the area this summer, you won’t have any trouble finding a diamond. There’s the Trenton Thunder, of course. Little League and American Legion seasons are in full swing, and if the major leagues are more your style, New York and Philadelphia are just a train ride away.
But if you’re craving something different—maybe America’s pastime with a little bit of history added in—Brad “Brooklyn” Shaw and his Flemington Neshanock Base Ball Club might have just the thing for you. The club wears custom-made, authentic replicas of vintage uniforms to play baseball by the 19th Century rules. You can check them out in person on June 27, when they play at the Princeton High School JV baseball field at an event sponsored by the Historical Society of Princeton.
The main difference between old-time and present-day baseball lies in the fact that players don’t wear gloves. Instead, they play barehanded, and Shaw said it was tough to adjust to at first. Pitchers also throw the ball underhanded, batters can’t overrun first base, and a ball is considered fair or foul by where it first hits the ground, whether or not it passed first or third base.
When Shaw founded the club, named after a team originally established in 1866, he and his team of friends and coworkers he recruited weren’t familiar with the old rules.
“We were all kind of learning the rules together,” he said. “We were all ‘muffins,’ as they said in the 19th Century, which are people who were not experienced in playing baseball, especially vintage baseball.”
The club currently plays against other similar teams along the East Coast. One of Shaw’s favorite places to play is in Newtown, Pennsylvania, where the team’s Memorial Day game has become a tradition over the last seven years. They’ve also played in Cooperstown, New York, home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Neshanock has played in Princeton for the last seven years, and Shaw, a Brooklyn native and Manalapan resident, said it’s one of his favorite places to visit.
“The people come up with very, very good questions,” he said. “You’re getting a lot of educated people that are coming to see the game. They have a lot of questions. That’s what I like. They’re a very receptive, intelligent audience.”
Shaw said the interest in vintage baseball has grown considerably since 2001.
“I used to be a softball player,” he said. “This gives me a chance to actually play baseball, learn about the history, teach history. There are five teams in New jersey. There used to be just one or two. It’s absolutely growing. Since I started the team 15 years ago, there are a lot more teams that I can play now. Everybody that sees it enjoys it.”
For more information, or if you’re interested in playing, visit neshanock.org.
–Samantha Sciarrotta
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