The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio) 1892-1912, 1910-03-25
BASEBALL AS A
COLLEGE GAME
Little General Popularity
Even in the Sixties.
THE FIRST CLUB At YALE
It was Organized I'm the Aut,lm OF
Y fS65-First Yale-Princcton Game
In 1S8S--Yalc Games With Pro-
fcssiOnals.

Qrrom Walter Camps "The American
National Game" In the April Cen
tury.)
Baseball as college game did not
really begin until the sixties, and
even then had little general popular
ity. In an endeavor to get some
thing of the spirir of the times,
asked man who was graduated in
the early days of baseball in the col
leges whether they played baseball In
his time. mo" he said at first; cor.
at least" he corrected himself, "a
few chaps used to go over into a va
cant lot that we passed on our walks
and make fools of themselves knock
ing the ball about, but the college
never took any interest in It,"
In the autumn of 1866 the Univer-
sity Baseball club was organized at
Yale. and a nine picked from the
class mines accepted challenge from
the Agallian club of Wesleyan. A
contemporary account stated: "The
Yale nine, never before having played
together, improved vastly as the
game progressed, and toward the
close played very brilliantly. Yale
won 80 to IL, the game lasting three
hours and twenty minutes"
Late in 81 Columbia and Yale had
n game, and in the following year
Yale. having been spurred on by her
successes, arranged a game with the
Unions of Morrisania, the champions
of the country. The game was ,ex-
citing, aud was hugely enjoyed by
the crowd. At the end of the fifth
inning Yale had made 8 runs and
the Unions 4. But the Unions i'm
proved. and had tied the score by the
end of the ninth, and finally sue
cecded in winning by the score of II
to H.
The score card of the game between
the classes of 1869 OF Yale and Har-
ward, reproduced from the orig.
inal score book, furnishes In itself
enough data to show that by the end
of the sixties the game had taken
on the really permanent form which
with minor alterations, has been pre-
served to the present day
The first Princeton game was
played on June. 21, 1868, Yale win
ming 30 TO 13; and the first Har.
ward game was played July rs OF
that year, Harvard winning 25 tc
H. The following year Yale agar
played the champions of the coun
try, this time the Mutuals of New
York. and was once more beaten, by
tine close score of IS to 49,
In the autumn OF 1871, the recol
shows that "the Yale pitcher, Stron
showed signs of great promise" al
though in the game with the Hay
makers, of Troy he was batted 70
forty-six bases. Harvard was almos
uniformly successful against Yale 70
the first few years, but in 1874, II
the games played in connection wit
the college boating regetta at Sara
toga, Yale, through the brillian
pitching of Avery, turned the table
and won both games. The most re
markable game played between thes,
two mines, however, was I'm the spring
of 1877, when Carter. the Yale pitch
err made the extraordinary record o.
allowing only twenty-seven Harvard
men at the bat, Yale winning 6 to
Harvard. however, won the second
game 10 to / and the final game ol
the series to e
BY this time college baseball was
improving rapidly, and I'm two years
was on a fair plane with the profes.
sional game; In fact. the Yale nine OF
1850 played no fewer than thirteer