"some little inspiration for baseball was from oina"

September 10, 2024 11:19 AM

"I no longer believed in good people and pure things until we started this whole oina thing. It’s a thing that sustains from nothing, only from passion, from pure and real feelings. It was such a surprise." Photographer Sorin Vidis describes his project to document the Romanian sport of oina, a baseball precursor, called "a fascinating game" which has been played in the country since at least the 14th century. It became Romania's national sport in 2014.
posted by jessamyn (11 comments total)

looks like the ball is the same size and weight as a baseball, but the aim is for the defense to bean the "baserunners"? Yikes.
posted by torokunai at 11:41 AM on September 10

Can you fathom the sheer number of and variety of "stick and ball" games humanity has created over the years? First one probably got created about 5 seconds after Thag picked up a stick
posted by drewbage1847 at 12:03 PM on September 10 [1 favorite]

An oina ball looks a lot like a modern hackysack so getting beaned with one probably isn't incapacitating.
posted by chavenet at 12:14 PM on September 10

What about the English game rounders?, we played it formally in junior school - the only group sport I ever enjoyed, a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon - and big fun when one manages tp bat the ball oit of the school playing field.
posted by unearthed at 12:33 PM on September 10

Rounders is almost assuredly the immediate precursor to American baseball, but you catch more attention by claiming a connection to the MLB
posted by drewbage1847 at 12:36 PM on September 10

Of course the game involving both bats and organ music would be invented in Transylvania.
posted by Strange Interlude at 1:58 PM on September 10 [7 favorites]

where the heck is DirtyOldTown anyway
posted by ginger.beef at 2:25 PM on September 10 [1 favorite]

For anyone else intrigued by this - while it appears to be a homemade translation of an official video, this seems to give you a rough idea of how the game works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1VyYAzk2bQ
posted by DancingYear at 3:43 PM on September 10 [1 favorite]

What about the English game rounders?

Yep, the one link I didn't include was this one which makes it clear that it was one inspiration among many.
posted by jessamyn at 5:01 PM on September 10 [2 favorites]

How did I miss a Romania/baseball thread? I feel like I should have been notified.

Weirdly, I have never heard of this. I'll ask Comrade Doll.

Side note: a weird key to our marriage is that CD is one of the rare Romanian who understands baseball. She went to a high school in Cluj that specialized in teaching English and one of her teachers was an American who taught them all softball/baseball.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:52 AM on October 9 [1 favorite]

I feel like I should have been notified.

I wanted it to be a surprise!

Seriously though I only learned about it because it was part of my Duolingo Romanian lesson and I had never heard of it before either.
posted by jessamyn at 7:48 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]