Before I begin, close your eyes. Imagine yourself going back in time. Back decades. Back a century. Back a century and five decades. Back to 1860. Let a coat of sepia tint your view as your imagination floats through time to an era where Rawlings had yet to invent a mitt and the curve ball was a few generations away from baffling a striker.

This is the world I entered this weekend. The world of 1860s baseball. And let me just state this out front: I sucked. I was, in fact, my team’s worst player.

I was really looking forward to playing. My son and I attended a Mankato MoonDogs game back when the season kicked off on a night when an old-time baseball team had a display there. We grabbed a Mankato Baltics baseball card and signed up to play in a game.

That game was Saturday afternoon on the grounds of what used to be the elementary school in Garden City. I attended without my son, who is out of commission for baseball for the rest of the summer. (A fireballer from Cloquet clipped his left elbow with a pitch and cracked a bone. Thinking he just needed to shake it off, I, being an assistant coach, ordered him to shake it off and get his butt down to first, which he did.)

I arrived at 3 in the afternoon, a fine day for a gentleman’s game of “base ball.” My team was dubbed the “Goodguys,” but we were a collection of misfits if I ever saw one.

Our leader distributed positions and I was assigned to centerfield. (Cue the intro to that great John Fogarty song, “Centerfield.”)

Mays. Griffey, Jr. Mantle. Puckett. Murray. Centerfielders all. Could I live up to the greats that had come before? In a word, no.

The first ball that came my way I fielded cleanly and got it in. But the second? Well ...

In old time base ball, if you field a hit on one bounce, it’s still an out. So I watched the ball come in  and planned to play the hop. I even gave myself enough room to react if some wicked spin took the ball on an unpredictable hop, but I didn’t need to. It hopped right to me. And as I went to grab it, it slipped out of my hands like a bar of soap. It dribbled off behind me and what should have been an easy out turned out to be a double for the Baltics.

Later, another fly ball came my way and, again, I was prepared to play the bounce. But this ball was hit far, beyond the grass of the field and into the parking lot. And when it bounced, it bounced big, and caromed off the school and skittered behind the air conditioner.

I chased it, lobbed it in and tried to catch my breath. It was hot. I was winded. And I started to wonder who had the bigger  belly, me or the pregnant women entering the school building.

My hitting was no better.

First up, I hit a weak bouncer to short. Easy out.

Second, I hit a weak bouncer to third. Easy out.

Third, I hit the faintest of foul tips, and when the catcher caught it on one hop, I was out.

Fourth, I hit a hard shot to third, and the third baseman bobbled it. So I lumbered down to first base thinking I’d get there in plenty of time. But as I looked down to first, I could see the first basemen’s face and could tell the ball was coming. I tried to hurry ... but I was out.

And that was it. I sucked. But I’ll tell you what: old time base ball is really swell.

This is the fourth year for the Mankato Baltics, who operate out of the Blue Earth County Historical Society. And according to Hugh “The Colonel” Belgard, who serves as arbiter, which you might compare to an umpire, the team has struggled to find players.

“We’ve had a real hard time finding people to come see it or play,” he said. But he said that, once people come and experience the game, they tend to prefer it to softball.

“The rules are so much different, you don’t have any gloves, you don’t have any stick-em on their hands,” Belgard said. “And unlike the major leagues where the umpires control the games, I don’t make any decisions unless they ask me.”

Brad “Hotstepper” Hawker is the team’s captain. He said he also plays in a softball league, but he much prefers old time vintage base ball.

“It’s much more of a challenge,” he said.

Player Joe “Quickstep” Andreasen was skeptical about playing at first. But when he came, he fell in love with it.

“There’s just something about it,” he said.

By the end of the day, the Baltics trounced the Goodguys, 16-4. But the score was irrelevant. It was a good, sepia-toned day for a gentlemanly game.