WASHINGTON – Continuing a dominant theme at the school and in Washington this year, The Gunnery will host a game of 19th century baseball at its Alumni Weekend on Saturday, June 12, at 2:30 pm.

The game will be held on Barnes Field, the varsity baseball diamond. The public is invited to attend and cheer on 21st century players dealing with, among other differences, “dead” balls and no gloves.

The Middletown Mansfields, a vintage baseball team, will teach the rudiments of 1870s play to a team of alumni and then will play a game. The team has been a member of the New England Vintage Baseball League since its inception in 2002.

The Mansfields play by the 1860 rules propagated by Henry Chadwick and modified by the New England Vintage Baseball League. The players come from all over Connecticut: New Haven, Waterbury, Naugatuck, Meriden, Greenwich, South Windsor, East Hartford, Portland and Colchester.

The Middletown Mansfields (2004) are patterned after the team of the same name in 1871, which was a member of the National Association of Baseball Players (the major league of its day). The team is named after General Mansfield of Middletown, who was killed at Antietam during the Civil War.

The Gunnery’s alumni office scheduled the game to complement the Gunn Scholar’s project to study an 1869 school treasure, the first known photograph of a baseball game in progress. As the theme of the year, the school invited Peter Gammons of ESPN to speak about 21st century baseball in April; Washington’s Gunn museum has an exhibit of “Game Today! 100 Years of Baseball in Washington 1860-1960”; and the varsity baseball team won its first league championship since the 1970s.

For more information call Paula Krimsky at 860-868-7334 ext. 251.