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Yale and the Origins of Intercollegiate Baseball
A
team from Yale played in the first truly modern intercollegiate
baseball game
May
2002
by Judith Ann Schiff
Judith
Ann Schiff is Chief Research Archivist at the Yale University Library.
Baseball
delights in controversy: The best hitter, the premier pitcher, the greatest team of all time, even the origin of the sport—almost any topic
associated with the game will spark unending argument.
One
of the oldest debates concerns which teams played in the first intercollegiate
contest. Amherst, which squared
off against Williams in 1859, has long made that claim, but
according to preeminent sports authority Walter
Camp, Class of 1880, the honor should go to Yale
and Wesleyan, even though their matchup didn't occur until September 30, 1865.
Regardless
of who
was truly first, the archival record reveals the significant
role that Yale and other Northeastern colleges played in the development
of the American national game. Baseball evolved over centuries from
local variations of the English game of rounders,
and children's games like "one
old cat." Early in the 19th century, playing ball games became
popular with Yale students despite college rules that forbade playing
"hand" or "foot" ball on the college grounds or on the Green and
imposed a fine of 50 cents or arrest by the city police.
In
the late 1840s and 1850s two forms of baseball emerged. The rules
adopted by the New York City Knickerbockers
became known as New
York baseball, and the older Massachusetts form of the game
was known as Boston baseball. As with rowing, the first organized
Yale teams were class teams, rather than varsity teams, and played
intramural matches. Gradually they began to play other colleges
and amateur clubs, but official records were not kept.
The
1859 game between Amherst and Williams was Boston baseball, played
with 13-man teams on a square of four bases. Yale also played Boston
baseball at that time. In the old game, there were no foul balls, each side had only one out per inning, and the game ended when one
side scored a preset number of tallies, or runs. The use of a lively
ball resulted in high scores, and Amherst beat Williams, 73 to 32.
The
Civil War marked a turning point in baseball history. It was the
favorite
pastime of Union soldiers who tried out both sets of rules and
came to prefer the New York style. Shortly after the War, 91 amateur
teams adopted the New York rules, basically today's form of the
game. Baseball boomed, motivating the organization of a varsity
Yale team and the first modern intercollegiate match with Wesleyan.
Yale won, 39 to 13.
Baseball
was a fall and spring sport until football
teams were formed in the 1870s. Yale practiced on Ashmun Street
where many balls flew over the high wall of the Grove Street Cemetery.
In the late 1860s, games were held at Hamilton Park, two miles out
Whalley Avenue on the horse railway
line. Sometimes, there were large crowds of spectators and admission
was charged.
Playing
out of town was another matter. The faculty solved the new problem
of players missing classes by permitting them to play away games
only three times a season, and often not allowing any non-playing
students to accompany them. Colleges continued to play against non-collegiate
clubs until the organization of the first professional team, the
Cincinnati Red
Stockings, in 1869, led to the separation of amateur from professional
baseball.
The Yale Courant, which began publication in the fall of 1865,
rejoiced that Yale at last had "a nine really and truly chosen from
the whole college," and compared baseball to boating. The Courant found baseball a superior sport in many regards, noting that: a
few can participate in boating while many play baseball; spectators
can see only a portion of a boat race while they can see all of
a game; and the baseball player is not "moving monotonously in a
constrained position" but is "erect and moving as the creator made
you." Baseball, the "truly national game . will always hold its
place with many, as a developing and strengthening amusement."  |
