About your Elizabeth Resolutes
The Elizabeth Resolutes are a vintage base ball club in New Jersey, based on the historic team of the same name that played from 1866 to 1878. Playing at our home field at Rahway River Park in Rahway, New Jersey, The Elizabeth Resolutes face opponents throughout the mid-Atlantic region, travelling to New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, as well as teams in New Jersey. The Elizabeth Resolutes play our home games by the rules stipulated in the DeWitt’s Handbooks Base Ball Guide published in 1870. We play these rules to commemorate the original Elizabeth Resolutes team winning the New Jersey State Amateur Base Ball Championship, besting The Amateur Club of Newark on November 11th, 1870 by a score of 28 to 17. We play in period-correct uniforms for the era, with modern all-black cleats for safety. We pitch underhand and use no gloves while in the field. The ball used for our era looks exactly the same as a modern ball, using the figure eight stich pattern, with a rubber core and several windings of yarn, covered in leather. Wood bats no bigger than 2.5 inches in diameter, and up to 40 inches in length are used at the plate.
The current iteration of The Elizabeth Resolutes was conceived and built by Paul Salomone of Westfield, New Jersey. A lifelong baseball fan, Paul was introduced to vintage base ball after viewing a documentary on the subject in 1994, thinking “that was the coolest thing I ever saw”. Paul began researching teams that played in his local area of Union County, and found The Elizabeth Resolutes, basing his modern team on them. Researching and building the team in 1999, The Elizabeth Resolutes took the field again in 2000, playing consistently every season since. Paul was always outspoken on rules of the era, and how to accurately present the game as historically accurate as possible. Sadly, we lost Paul in November of 2020 after a hard-fought battle with cancer.
Despite our devastating loss, The Elizabeth Resolutes continues in Paul’s memory and honor to accurately play vintage base ball. Our roster typically consists of 10 – 14 players from a variety of backgrounds and sporting experience, and we are always looking for new players to help bolster our team. Our home field at Rahway River Park is actually the far outfield of Softball Field #4, as play at the time did not have a pitcher’s mound or a dirt infield, playing on as level a grass field as possible. In our 21st season, we have started a partnership with The Merchants & Drover’s Tavern Museum in Rahway, New Jersey to help spread awareness of vintage base ball. The Merchants & Drovers is also pivotal in helping promote our annual Base Ball History Day, an all-day festival with numerous teams playing on multiple fields at Rahway River Park.
Inquiries are always welcome! We encourage all inquiries here or through our Facebook site, https://www.facebook.com/ElizabethResolutes.
