“Wild Card” is up to bat and “Taco” is the pitcher, when the umpire — known as “the sir” — announces that the count is “five and one,” as if that’s a normal thing to say in baseball.

In 1886, it was.

And if teams from the Bay Area Vintage Base Ball League are playing, it might as well be 1886 as the action unfolds on ball fields in Sunnyvale, Dublin and Albany.

Nothing makes sense — and yet it all makes sense to the men in curly mustaches and wool uniforms who are swatting 40-ounce bats (MLB bats are usually 33 ounces), hitting soft baseballs made without cork (good luck hitting a home run) and wearing tiny leather gloves made without webbing.

“It’s like a gardening glove,” says “Dapper Dan,” one of the players on the San Francisco Pelicans team.

Everything is exactly as it was 138 years ago, and that’s the whole point. Catch a game between any of the 10 Bay Area teams, which hail from San Francisco to San Jose, Dublin and Oakland, and you’ll watch the “sirs” swigging beer between innings, managers smoking cigars, and players calling each other by nicknames in the most fascinating baseball game you’ll ever see.

“A lot of people consider this a re-enactment,” says James “Hollywood” Stapleton, the manager of the Pelicans. “But nothing is scripted. It’s completely competitive.”

On a recent Sunday at Big Rec Field in Golden Gate Park, pedestrians who accidentally stumble onto a handful of Babe Ruth lookalikes are drawn to the action. Folks on bike rides can’t help but take a water break and sit in the bleachers. A game that began with four people in the stands had about 50 by the third inning.

“Sometimes we get a few hundred,” Stapleton says.

There are a few regulars who sip beers in the bleachers and scream things like “good hurl!” and “Way to go, Chowder!”

The only thing routine about fly balls is they’re routinely dropped. Pitchers, known as “hurlers,” use quick-pitches and hidden-ball tricks. It takes seven balls for a walk, three for a strikeout and foul balls don’t count as strikes. The games are only seven innings but still average close to three hours long.

In San Francisco, the Pelicans are doing well, largely thanks to their 56-year-old first baseman, a reliable fellow who catches everything thrown his way. He’s known only as “Switchblade,” Stapleton says, “because he looks like he should carry a switchblade but is actually the nicest guy ever.”

“Switchblade” has been with the team since its inception but is retiring after this season — and the Pelicans are looking for a replacement.

Spots don’t open up often, so this is a rare opportunity. Tryouts will take place in the fall. Anyone can attend. The only requirement is a desire to learn about 1886-style baseball and the ability to run around in heavy, wool uniforms every other Sunday in the middle of summer.

The details >> Stumble upon a game at Big Rec Field on most Sundays through the end of September, and in Sunnyvale, Dublin and Albany today. Find more information at www.bavbb.com.

But wait, there’s more >> The Oakland A’s are finishing their final season at the Coliseum, with their last game scheduled for Sept. 26; tickets to the finale are sold out but available on second-hand markets like StubHub. The Oakland Ballers, in their first season in the Pioneer League, have home games through the end of August. In San Francisco, the Giants continue their regular season schedule at Oracle Park through the end of September.