By Kalle Oakes,Staff Writer
A baseball team in Turner is taking its game to a different era.

Ha, and you thought speaking out against the designated hitter or griping about the lost art of the bunt made you a baseball purist?

The Dirigo Vintage Baseball Club takes its appreciation of the national pastime and its history far beyond that, playing the game the way it was drawn up in the 1860s.

After founding members participated in an exhibition game at Norlands Living History Center in Livermore last year, Dirigo evolved into an official organization over the winter. Its inaugural season begins Saturday with an open practice session at the field adjacent to Boofy Quimby Memorial Center in Turner.

If the forecast of sunny skies and 60-degree temperatures holds, group members expect to play outdoors. They’ll move into the gym if conditions aren’t favorable.

Men, women and children are invited, whether you’re interested in being a player, umpire or batboy or if you’re simply the curious type.

“It’s been described as a traffic accident waiting to happen,” said Dirigo Baseball President Mark Rohman of Augusta. “That’s because most of the games are played by the side of the road. People driving by slam on their brakes because they wonder what’s going on.”

What’s going on is the equivalent of a grainy, black-and-white film that might be found in a vault at the Hall of Fame library in Cooperstown, N.Y., only brought to life in real time and space.

Men and women of all ages don uniforms that baseball inventor Abner Doubleday would have found fashionable and play baseball the way rules dictated in the game’s infancy.

A whole new ballgame

In addition to hearing a glossary of obsolete terminology, spectators see a game played with a longer bat, a softer ball and no gloves.

“You can catch the ball on the fly or on one bounce, and in both cases it’s considered an out,” Rohman said. “There are no balls or strikes called. The batter tells the pitcher where he wants the ball thrown, and it’s the pitcher’s job to feed him the ball.”

Matt Bray of Brunswick and Craig Young of Turner gave Rohman ample assistance in getting the team off the ground. The three men are members of the 3rd Maine Volunteer Infantry, a group that stages Civil War reenactments throughout the region.

Norlands asked the history buffs, all of them long-time recreational baseball and softball players, if they would be willing to form a team to compete against the Essex Baseball Club of Danvers, Mass.

“We wore our Civil War pants and some old-school baseball shirts with the short sleeves, the shield on the front and the buttons,” said Bray, the teams vice president. “And we actually played pretty well.”

Dirigo held its initial annual meeting in January. The group hopes enough players will join the fun over the next few summers so it can expand into the equivalent of a recreational league with five or six teams, each playing a 15-game schedule.

History repeating itself

Bray believes there are at least 35 vintage baseball teams already playing in New England, with hundreds more popping up across the country.

“Civil War reenactment really took off as a hobby in the 1980s, and it got a big boost from the Gettysburg’ movie,” Bray said. “Baseball is something that could attract even more people because it’s something you can touch and relate (to today).”

Vintage baseball games are interactive. A spokesman, usually the umpire, begins by explaining basic rules to the fans (who were known as “cranks” until the term “fan” was coined near the end of the 19th century).

According the early rules, while the umpire didn’t have to concern himself with balls and strikes, he often took the time to ask the cranks’ opinion before making a close call.

“Most of the games we play are scheduled as doubleheaders, so the first game is a demonstration where we play strictly by the old rules,” Rohman said. We might loosen things up a little bit for the second game.”

The group has a detailed web site at www.dirigobaseball.org, complete with rules, contact information and a tentative schedule. Rohman said information packets will be available on Saturday.