Roxbury Nine vie for their sixth Keator Cup on Labor Day Weekend
After nearly a decade of fierce vintage sport, the Nine will remember and retire some of its founding stars
The Roxbury Nine vintage base ball club will bring home their ninth season of play all Labor Day weekend with three days of action and emotion. The Harry M. Keator Vintage Base Ball Tournament in Roxbury's Kirkside Park begins on Friday evening, August 29, and continues full throttle all Saturday and Sunday, August 30 and 31, with the championship game on Sunday at 1 p.m. — a match the Roxbury Nine has never lost.
Feelings will be running high on Friday evening, August 29, as the Nine pay tribute to their late manager, John McAlonen, during the opening game with Fleischmanns Mountain Athletic Club. On Sunday, Aug. 31, the team will retire six of its founding players in its first Roxbury Nine Hall of Fame induction ceremony. For sports fans of every age, the entire weekend is a once-a-year opportunity to watch the early history of base ball unfold right on the field, as eight teams from all over the Northeast compete. Whether it's the underhand, slow pitch days of the 1860s or the fast pitch game of the Nine's signature 1898 year, it's base ball played by its most ardent amateurs, for the history and the love of the game.
"It is a haunted game in which every player is measured against the ghosts of all who have gone before. Most of all, it is about time and timelessness, speed and grace, failure and loss, imperishable hope—and coming home." — Ken Burns & Geoffrey WardCompetitive and close-knit, the Roxbury Nine roster includes four sets of brothers, many nephews, uncles, Roxbury alumni and even a Harry Keator descendent. The club headed into July with a 10-0 record, including a nail-biting, come-from-behind June 21 win against the Vintage World Series champs, the Westfield Wheelmen of Massachusetts.
Running for home all season
"Our theme this year has been 'the best of the past is coming home again,'" said Roxbury Team Captain Rich Ellsworth, adding, "We've been playing locally for most of the season, travelling less, putting all our energies here at home for our local fans. We've crossed bats many times with our sporting neighbors, the Mountain Athletic Club of Fleischmanns, which helps both teams build our hometown support."
Labor Day Keator Cup action will, as always, be gaily ensconced in "all the agreeable pursuits of 1898," as Roxbury hamlet celebrates its 9th "Turn of the Century Days" with historic hamlet and house tours, authentic country fare, crafts, horse carriage rides, Vaudevillian entertainers, mountain minstrels, period fashion show and a first-ever community-wide 1898 group portrait in Kirkside Park (read more about how you can be a part of the fun in this guide).
For the impatient at heart, the MAC and Roxbury Nine will meet in an Independence Day matchup at noon this Friday, July 4, on Oneonta's Neewah Field as part of Oneonta's Centennial Celebration. The Nine will also travel to Westfield, Mass. later this month to compete in the Vintage Base Ball Federation World Series.
All Labor Day weekend, base ball will celebrate its "good old days," where the equipment is sparse, the action unrelenting and the players unpaid but for the gusto of a good game and the crowd's huzzahs. As poet Walt Whitman would say, “Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs . . . The game of ball is glorious.” Visit www.roxburyny.com for information and updates or call 607 326-3722.
FRAT TEAM — Matt and Andrew Walker are just one of four pairs of brothers on the Roxbury Nine vintage base ball team roster. Familiar faces on the hometown team make for spirited, hard fought games. The Nine have played more "home" games this year to thank their local fan base and grow the sport in Delaware County, with the collaboration of the newly revived Mountain Athletic Club of Fleischmanns. The Nine will be defending the Keator Cup once again all Labor Day weekend in Roxbury at the Harry M. Keator Cup Vintage Base Ball Tournament. Be there with your huzzahs. — Photo contributed by Peg Ellsworth, courtesy of the Town of Roxbury.