OT: 149 Years Ago Today In Rutgers Sports History

[Source]

It was May 5, 1866 when students of Rutgers who played campus class games and games with the local Star Base Ball Club of New Brunswick, and others, played the school's first intercollegiate game. Banding together as the Rutgers Base Ball Club, they ventured to Princeton, flipped a coin (that Rutgers won) and sent the Nassau Hall Base Ball Club of Princeton College up to bat first.

Rutgers scored in the first two innings but Princeton scored in all the innings and won 40-2. Rutgers only had eight men and played with no centerfielder. Although the score sounds harrowing, scoring 40 was somewhat the norm in early baseball (it was Rutgers only score 2 that was unusual).

It was the only intercollegiate baseball game the team played in the 1860s. Princeton invited Rutgers back for a baseball game just weeks before the first intercollegiate football game was played in 1869. Rutgers actually went to Princeton but the weather was cold and rainy so they never played. Rutgers started continuous play in 1870 and haven't stopped since Rutgers has now played Princeton around 155 games with R.U. leading the series by a handful of wins.

I hope Rutgers and Princeton make plans to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the first ever meeting on a sports field by the two schools on May 5, 2016. Considering we are honoring the 250th Anniversary of the chartering of Rutgers next year, that would seem to be a big deal.

 

[GoodOl'Rutgers]

Was this the first event intercollegiate contest of any kind or just Rutgers first?

 

[LadyRU09]

According to the William Leggett reenactor outside Old Queens on Rutgers Day, the 40-2 baseball game is what prompted Rutgers to challenge Princeton in football.

 

[newell138]

today is the 100th anniversary of Babe Ruth's first homer, its also Willie May's birthday

 

[Scarlet_Scourge]

According to the William Leggett reenactor outside Old Queens on Rutgers Day, the 40-2 baseball game is what prompted Rutgers to challenge Princeton in football.

That may or not be true. There were Princeton papers which joked that the reason why Rutgers wanted to play Princeton is Foot Ball was as revenge for the Base Ball lost. That might be where the rumor came from but the joke may also be based in fact.

 

[Source]

The Yale-Harvard Regatta on August 3, 1852 (and annually since 1859) is considered the first American intercollegiate sports competition.

Amherst defeated Williams on July 1, 1859 in the first intercollegiate baseball game followed by Fordham's victory over the now-defunct St. Francis college about three months later. Fordham used the baseball rules today's game is derived from.

The only Rutgers student still around from the May 5, 1866 baseball loss when Princeton met Rutgers in football on November 6, 1869 was Asher Anderson. None of the earliest stories regarding the football game specifically mentioned the 1866 baseball game. That came later in time.

 

[Source]

Coming up on 145 years since the third Rutgers intercollegiate competition. Rutgers Crew vs. the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard.

Rutgers football players who also had Crew experience including: Ezra DeLamater, Winfield Lasher, William Leggett, George Stevens, John Van Neste and Madison Ball who were later part of Rutgers first intercollegiate crew race against Harvard’s Lawrence Scientific School on the Raritan River on June 20, 1870.