Pitch in for 19th Century Baseball With the Aloha Vintage Base Ball Association

“The bats are heavier, the gloves are smaller, the uniforms look like they came straight out of the 19th century,” Hawai‘i illustrator Matias Solario says about vintage baseball. “It’s almost impossible to look cool. And it’s the most fun I’ve ever had playing baseball.”

So much fun that he’s launching the Aloha Vintage Base Ball Association, which will play with the rules, uniforms, equipment and lingo of 1880s baseball (runs are aces, outs are hands, and umpires are always called “sir”). By late summer, Solario had enough players for two teams—the Waikīkī Base Ball Club and the Royal Hawaiian Base Ball Club—and was looking to field at least one and possibly two more.

Why? Beyond the lure of the game, which he played in college, something clicked when he discovered the vintage leagues competing across the country. Now, Solario wants to showcase the specific history of baseball in Hawai‘i.

Like the fact that Alexander Joy Cartwright—enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame as the father of modern baseball—laid out the Islands’ first official ball field in Makiki after his 1850 arrival from New York; it later became known as Cartwright Field. (His grave at O‘ahu Cemetery has long drawn devotees, including Babe Ruth in 1934.) There’s also the fact that some late 19th century Hawai‘i teams were desegregated.

“We’re trying to incorporate more ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i that we were finding in newspapers from the era. We do want to set ourselves apart from the other leagues,” Solario says. “The history of baseball literally begins in the Pacific, here in Hawai‘i, and I really want people to know that.”

The season opens Nov. 16, though “we’re trying to be creative with how we structure the season,” he says. Anyone over age 18 is eligible.

alohavintagebaseball@gmail.com, @alohavintagebaseball

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Mari Taketa is the dining editor of HONOLULU Magazine and editor of Frolic Hawai‘i.