For those who imagine that a historian's life is all work and no play, there's something to see every Friday afternoon on the athletic fields of the University of California at Davis. It is townball, a game Alan Taylor learned during his many stays in Cooperstown, N.Y., and introduced first to the Boston University campus when he taught there.

One of a number of ball games that, by a process still dimly understood, produced the modern American game of baseball (and the British game of cricket), townball probably most closely resembles rounders, a game still played by British schoolgirls. In Cooperstown, the Farmer's Museum organized a team in the 1980s, and eventually a league, to revive the game.

There are four bases, but the batter stands between home plate and first, and the bases are actually stakes. As in cricket, any hit by the batsman is in play; there is no foul or fair territory. The most effective offensive strategy is to hit between fielders rather than to swing for the fences. One out--on a caught fly, or a throw that hits a runner, who need not keep to the basepaths--is all the batting team gets. Games are won with 11 or 21 runs.

Taylor describes townball as "less competitive," but after a match with his junior and senior undergraduates, this visiting writer--who joined the seniors--attests that it's certainly not for the faint-hearted. Keeping up with the students was tough enough that an imminent engagement after seven innings provided a welcome exit.

While his colleagues can't fault Taylor's integrity as a scholar or writer, they do have occasional questions about his townball performances. Taking advantage of his position as the local townball authority, "He's been known to bend the rules a bit," one colleague said. Adds another, "I wouldn't bet against him on that field."