The Great Black Swamp Frogs

The Great Black Swamp Frogs Base Ball Club plays Civil War Era base ball matches using rules codified in 1860. In that time, base ball was an amateur sport played by respectable gentlemen. The Frogs—with their families, friends and worthy adversaries—recreate these social and recreational events.

Though the game played by the Frogs is fundamentally the same as baseball today, there are differences in rules, strategies and equipment, which are portrayed as accurately as possible. For matches, the umpire and players  wear authentic period attire. The Frogs’ appearance is modeled after uniforms donned by two historic teams: The Baraboo, Wisconsin Base Ball Club (uniform of 1866, as seen at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York), and The New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of 1859.

The club’s history began in 1991 with a match against the Ohio Village Muffins and its name pays homage to northern Ohio history, as a great black swamp once spanned the region and nearby Toledo was known as Frogtown.