University of Vermont - Ariel Yearbook (Burlington, VT)

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THE ARIEL, 1908 15 Tlllbe Beginnings of Zlntereullegiate Baseball in the GH. Til. . HY LYMAN ALLEN, M. D. HE early history of baseball as an intercollegiate sport i11 the Univer- sity of Yermont makes rather amusing reading, as found 111 the issues of the 'lCynic. ln 1884 a tie game with Middlebury was about the only game played, and in 1885 there seems to have been no contest with any other college team. In 1886 the Vermont Intercollegiate Baseball League was formed with Middlebury and Norwich, and we captured the pennant tif there was onej and also played games with Dartmouth fllosing II-OJ and with several town teams, such as Rutland, Plattsburg, Bethel, etc., besides the local High School and St. Josephs College teams. Up to this time we had no inclosed held and all games were played on the campus without gate receipts. In 1887 Athletic Park was used and a few games played with Middlebury and Norwich, which latter college won the baseball pen- nant. ln 1888 we 1'CC21pllll1'CCl this and played a few other games, winning most of them, but being overwhelmed by Dartmouth. Eighteen eighty-nine saw the last of the Vermont Intercollegiate League, for the other two colleges insisted that only academieal students be eligible for o11r team, and we refused the condition. Dartmouth beat us again this year Q12-2, and we lost a series of two out of three games to St. Josephs College. This very strong Catholic college team proved a most important supply of base- ball material for our teams of succeeding years, and the fact that the Burlington l-ligh School also had an unusually large number of athletes at this time was another factor in our later successes. In the spring of 1890 the first systematic training of the team began. There being no cage or gymnasium, the room under the chapel was used for winter baseball work and all the candidates trained in the Y. M. C. A. gymnasium. To B. VV. Abbey, 791, more than to any other one man, is due the credit of putting baseball upon a proper footing. An enthusiastic lover of the game and a st11dent of it also, he directed the training, and was coach and captain in one. He was our first really great pitcher and made a good record in the big league and other professional leagues after leaving college. It is remarkable that a

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14 THE ARIEL, 1908 attaining a high grade of intellectual efficiency if he leave athletics aside. But he is wanted for a managership, and must content himself with a lower grade if he accepts. Here is another who is hovering on the verge of failure in his course, and is sure to fail if he goes off now and again with his team. No man is wanted on a team, or deals fairly with it, who does not put a great deal of heart into it. Once in a great while a specially brilliant fellow can put a large afnount of enthusiasm into athletics and not appear to suffer thereby. The student of average ability cannot. College records are strewn with wrecks from this cause. VT. This brings us back to the point from which we started. Athletics- and especially intercollegiate athletics-have had an abnormal development. The present condition is-or the recently past condition was-one of feverish inten- sity. VVe are working toward a stage in which we can keep all the undeniable good we have gained, and disencumber ourselves of the attendant evils, which we believe to be incidental and detachable. By outlawing professionalism- which has been the chief bane and the source of most others-we shall have made a brave beginning. That accomplished, and the mercenary motives put out of the held, there is left pure sport, with all its healthy rivalry, all its exulta- tion in the consciousness of physical prowess, all its incentives to bodily training and mental alertness, with no undue excitement, no -blunting of moral percep- tions and no suppression of gentlemanly instincts, and with vigor unimpaired- heightened perhaps-for the serious work of college life. They are foolsf' says I-lesiod, who know not that the half is more than the whole. XVhen devotion to athletics has become fanaticism, halve it and you get enthusiasm, which is saner, and more continuous, and longer lived, and far more sure to win all that is worth winning. -- ..: .1- i 1 7

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16 THE ARIEL, 1908 young man with no outside instruction could not only develop himself into a major league player, but practically teach a college the game of baseball. I do not mean that Mr. Abbey was the best pitcher or the greatest ball player whom we ever had here, but I do insist that to his genius is due the development of baseball in the University, so that in two or three years we rose from a position very near the bottom of the list of American colleges in baseball to one very near the top. To some it may be interesting to know that in this year the first catcher's mitt ever seen in Vermont was ordered for the team, and when found too light, was turned over to the first baseman and a heavier mitt procured for the catcher. Before this the catcher had worn a long-fingered glove on his left hand and frequently a fmgerless glove on his right. In this year also came the last great war between the medical and academical students, precipitated by the question as to which department should have the managership of the baseball team. The matter was decided by a game of ball between teams from the two departments, won by the Academics C19-45, and since that day the manager has always been elected from the academical depart- ment. T he feeling between the two departments was very high all that year, and in a scrap between them on the night of a game with Dartmouth, at which the Medics had loudly supported the visiting team, some of the Dartmouth men were mistaken for Medics and the episode was long laid up against us by our friends from New I-Iampshire, who could not be made to realize that the matter was purely a family affairn and that since they were supporting the Medics by their presence and in other ways, the Academics could hardly be expected to distinguish them in the dark, and when handling such uncertain missiles as eggs. Ever since that year the best of good feeling has existed between the depart- ments. In the summer of 1890 the business men of Burlington decided to keep the Varsity team, with a few changes, as a summer team, and this was done for three successive years, with the result that the team work and general ball playing of the Varsity improved very greatly. The teams that weimet included most of the best New England college playersg for at that time no objection was made to Hsummer ball in any of the colleges so far as known. This summer playing taught the team the game of baseball most thoroughly, made us acquainted with the athletes of other colleges and their methods, and since the Burlington team was practically the Varsity team, we attracted much good baseball material to the University.