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Macon County Conservation District

2 days ago

Illinois’ First Vintage Base Ball Festival Returns this Saturday! Bring a picnic lunch and a lawn chair or blanket to BeautifulTrobaughField at Rock Springs Conservation Area. Games will begin at 10:20am and conclude around 5:15pm.

Twenty-one years ago, vintage base ball teams from Michigan, Ohio, Missouri and Illinois gathered at Rock Springs Conservation Area for the Stephen A. Douglas Cup Tourney, the first multi-club event west of Ohio. After a one-year absence due to COVID, the tradition resumes Saturday, September 25.

Assembling at BeautifulTrobaughField in Rock Springs will be the ever-popular Deep River Grinders of Hobart, Indiana, the Springfield Long Nine Vintage Base Ball Club, the perpetual contenders for rodent supremacy, the Vermilion Voles Vintage Base Ball Club of Danville, and their fellow contestant for that honor, the Rock Springs Ground Squirrels of Decatur.

This year’s Douglas Cup concludes the Ground Squirrels’ 2021 home season.

Over the years, the Douglas Cup transitioned from a competitive event in which the winner received a trophy to a festival format. While scores are kept, the emphasis now is on having fun, a tradition honoring the baseball’s early years in the 1850s when the new “gentleman’s game” was seen as an opportunity for fellowship and good sportsmanship.

Nearly every vintage team playing with the rules, customs and uniforms of the 1860-era, located between Interstate 80 and St. Louis, has played in the Douglas Cup at one time or another. The remaining “original” teams—the Grinders and the Ground Squirrels—have participated in every event.

This year’s Douglas Cup will include a brief ceremony honoring a much-beloved vintage base ballist and umpire, Ron “Razor” Crick. A founding member of the Voles, Crick passed away last month after a brief illness. Since 2003, Crick had been a regular at the Cup either as a player or an umpire.

A new feature of this year’s event is a “mixed” game including all players from the participating teams assembled randomly into nines.

The Rock Springs Ground Squirrels Vintage Base Ball Club is an educational program of the Macon County Conservation District.

Each game will continue for 70 minutes or seven innings, whichever occurs first:

10:20 to 11:35am - Long Nine vs. Vermilion Voles
Noon to 1:15pm – Deep River Grinders vs. Long Nine
1:20 to 2:35pm – Rock Springs Ground Squirrels vs. Voles
2:40 to 3:55pm – Ground Squirrels vs. Grinders
4 to 5:15pm –“Mixed” team games

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