Great Day of Lectures, Wicket and Baseball…

On Sunday members of the public and Essex Base Ball Association gathered at Spencer Peirce Little Farm for a full day of lectures and games. In the morning Larry McCray, John Shannahan, and William Peebles of the Huntington Baseball Company all gave great lectures that covered the crazy game of wicket, the Boston Red Stockings, and the evolution of gloves. We would like to thank all of the speakers for providing interesting topics for us.

After a lunch provided by our sponsor Oregano’s we tried our hand at 19th century wicket. Wicket was a game primarily played in Western MA and CT in which the bowler attempts to knock off a bail that is on two stumps. The batter must protect the bail and can score runs when they reach the other wicket located 75 feet away. The game may sound a little like cricket but the stumps are only 6 inches off the ground and the bail is 6 feet long. After a lot of experimenting with the game players finally got the hang of it. We all look forward to playing wicket again June 9th.

After our experiment with wicket we played a baseball game. While it is still preseason, the Newburyport Clamdiggers looked very strong erasing a 9 run deficit to win handily.

We return to practice this Sunday April 22nd at 11am and kick off the season April 29th at 12pm.