Other firsts in baseball/Event 7
From SABR Encyclopedia
| Spread project: Home -> Other firsts -> Other firsts in baseball/Event 7 |
| Year | 1859 |
|---|---|
| Month | 11 |
| Date | 3 |
| City | New York City |
| State | NY |
| Country | US |
| Description | First Intercollegiate Game by Association Rules |
| Found by | Gregory Christiano |
The Rose Hill Baseball Club of St. John's College [later Fordham University] played in its first public game against a nine from St. Francis Xavier. The is apparently the earliest known intercollegiate game played by New York rules; there is no indication of why the game was not played to a full nine innings.
"Fordham's baseball team was established on September 13, 1859, and played its first game on November 3, 1859 against Xavier College. Fordham was still known as St. John's College, and the team name was the Rose Hills. The game was played in six innings. According to a letter in the Walsh Library Archives, it was the first college game in the United States with nine men on each side. The Rose Hills won 33 - 11, launching an astonishing record of victories. . . . Over the years Fordham baseball teams have won over 4,000 games, more than any other Division I program in the country. The team had no losing seasons during the 19th-century."
Its personnel for that first game in 1859 was founder and Captain Numa Samoey of New Orleans, pitcher; John J. Gaynor of Richmond, pitcher; Nicholas Connell of New Orleans, shortstop; E. Brownson, first base; Henry Murphy, Albany, second Base; William J. Sheridan, Rochester, third base; James J. Doherty of New York, right field; James J. Sullivan, Brooklyn, left field; and Oliver McKeon, of Fordham, center field.
There is a further account from university archives that either in 1859 or 1860, a "Fordham Base-Ball team, known as the Rose Hills, captained by the late Frank Oliver, Father of the present day prominent 1st alumnus, F.V.S. Oliver, defeated the famous Atlantics of Brooklyn on the front lawn at Fordham, after the Atlantics had defeated the Mutuals in the best out of five games for the Championship of the United States. . ."
"All-Time Baseball Records - (from the Fordham University Archives) Records of the games from those early years:
1859 - '60 22 - 5 1860 - '61 28 - 7 1861 - '62 26 - 8 1862 - '63 25 - 7 1863 - '64 23 - 7 1864 - '65 25 - 8 1865 - '66 26 - 9 1866 - '67 29 - 9 1867 - '68 28 - 7 1868 - '69 27 - 9 1869 - '70 28 - 8
OPEN ISSUES: Can we confirm the general frequency of these pre-Civil War games in newspaper or other sources? Can we confirm the Fordham vs. Atlantics game of 1859? Can we confirm the cited letter in library archives?
 | This record has been submitted recently, and has not yet been reviewed. This does not imply that the information is incorrect, but that it is not yet included in official datasets. This notice will no longer appear once the record has been reviewed. |
