I BET YOU DIDN’T KNOW THERE WAS AMISH BASEBALL

There is no sport more American than baseball, but imagine if the Amish played baseball. What would that look like? No, I’m not setting up a punchline. There really is Amish baseball.

When Amish children and adults take to the field, the men wear black suits and sport beards, and the women wear full-length dresses and bonnets. But it’s more than the clothes that make the game different. The Amish go out of their way to avoid being proud or vain, meaning that even the mildest chatter doesn’t occur on the sidelines. In fact, because the Amish consider loudness to be displeasing to God, the innings pass in total meditative silence. You could watch the Amish play ball for hours and hear nothing more than the crack of the bat or the pounding of base-runners’ feet.

The Amish participate in a number of different sports – softball, dodgeball, and volleyball – but when they play, there’s no thrill of victory or agony of defeat. Being noncompetitive is a cherished Amish virtue, so winning and losing aren’t important. In most games, the players don’t even keep score. The sports are simply exercises in quiet cooperation – a crucial part of the lifestyle.