The College Baseball League: The Final Years

A look at the last two seasons of the College Baseball League and its sudden demise.

The College Baseball League started business discussions in late January 1888 about their upcoming season, their second in existence. The first thing done at the Fifth-Avenue Hotel was to award the 1887 pennant to the champion Yale Bulldogs. The three colleges; Yale, Harvard, and Princeton, also decided to invite a fourth college to join the association. Eventually, an invitation was given to Dartmouth, and their baseball club accepted to become the fourth member of the CBL.

The Big Green was a worthy candidate for the league to invite. Dartmouth was one of the stronger collegiate teams outside the CBL the previous year and was returning many of its starting nine. One of the returnees was pitcher Lee Viau, a future major leaguer. Dartmouth’s 1888 line-up also included another future MLer in Fred Woodcock. However, the competition in the CBL was going to be much stiffer than Dartmouth had faced the previous season in the weaker New-England Collegiate Association.

All four teams began their exhibition schedules at the beginning of April to get ready for the season opener at the conclusion of the month. The defending champion Bulldogs started their spring schedule well, beating an all-star team from the western universities, such as Michigan and Illinois, 4-2. A few days later, the Bulldogs actually had a late lead against the New York Giants before blowing it in the eighth and losing 6-3.

Back on the field, Yale’s first opportunity to defend its pennant was on opening day, where the Bulldogs traveled to Princeton to take on the Tigers. When the Bulldogs arrived, they were greeted by over 1,000 fans wearing Princeton orange and black who would litter the field during the game with ear-splitting chants and cheers. When they left, the crowd was cheering even louder as their beloved Tigers defeated the Bulldogs 6-5 in an exciting affair. Princeton held the lead throughout until Yale tied it up at five apiece in the sixth. However, in their half of the sixth, Princeton grabbed the lead for good, thanks to a King triple and the RBI single by Price that brought King in for the game-winning run.

The teams met again on May 26 ^th at the Polo Grounds and the rematch proved to be every bit as good as the first match. Yale won the game 7-3 over Princeton but the game belonged to Bulldogs’ pitcher Amos Stagg. Stagg was the best player in the CBL in ’87 but to that point in the ’88 season, he had struggled. On this day, though, Stagg struck out 20 Princeton batsmen in the victory. Stagg later said it was the best game he pitched in his life, and the game was a big win for Yale.

Princeton was now struggling. After shocking Yale on opening day, they went down to Cambridge and beat Harvard. That turned out to be the last CBL game Princeton would win all year. In late May, Harvard slaughtered Princeton 15-4 on their home field. More importantly for Harvard, the victory kept them only a game behind Yale for first place. Yale defeated them earlier in the year in Cambridge but the clubs still had one more meeting with each other left on the schedule.

However, before the season finale, Yale lost to Dartmouth, a team that came on late in the season. The loss dropped Yale to 5-2, the same record held by Harvard. That meant the finale scheduled for June 26 ^th in New Haven would decide the 1888 pennant one way or another. Stagg would go up against the ace of the Harvard staff, Bates, in what was sure to transpire as a pitchers’ duel between the two. And it turned out to be all pitching throughout the nine innings, except for two half-innings when the offense had their say.

It was zeros across the scoreboard until the bottom of the fifth when Calhoun led off the inning for Yale with a single. He was brought home for the first run of the game on Hunt’s triple. Noyes followed that up with a single to bring home Hunt for the second run. McCormack then reached on an error charged to Harvard leftfielder Knowlton. With two on and still nobody out, McClintock stepped up and crushed a ball over all the outfielders’ heads. Everyone scored, including McClintock and, thanks to his home run, Yale left the inning with a 5-0 lead and feeling safe with it thanks to Stagg, who was pitching beautifully.

However, in the seventh, Harvard’s bats woke up. Willard led off with a single, and two batters later, Knowlton doubled to put two runners in scoring position with one out. Then Hunt, the Yale third baseman, gave Harvard two runs on an error off the bat of Quackenboss to cut the lead to 5-2. Quackenboss would come around to score that inning as well on a two-out single by Campbell, the lead-off man. Stagg would retire Gallivan next but the damage was done. But Yale still had a 5-3 lead through seven.

No more runs would be surrendered, however, and the Yale Bulldogs would be able to fly back-to-back CBL pennants above their stadium. Fireworks exploded in the muggy June air and there was to be another party on campus. Once again, Yale was on top of the collegiate baseball world.

A few months after the 1888 season ended, the teams began preparing for the ’89 season and Harvard was looking to prevent their rival Yale from three-peating as champions. Brought in to coach the Crimson during the off-season was Boston Beaneater pitcher and future Hall-of-Famer John Clarkson, who would help prep a team returning five starters. Meanwhile, the news from New Haven wasn’t good as their star pitcher Amos Stagg announced he would not return to play baseball because he wanted to concentrate more on football. The loss of his catcher, Dann, also hurt the Bulldogs who would be breaking in a new battery for the first time in the CBL’s existence.

The third team, Princeton, was seldom talked about with the dominance of Harvard and Yale over the first two years. However, the Tigers returned seven starters, including three fourth-year players. With Stagg out of the picture, Tigers captain King was now the best pitcher in the league. However, many Tiger fans worried about the club’s hitting ability and feared they didn’t have enough to compete with the other two schools.

In January, the league announced its return to the three-team, ‘triangle’ league after Dartmouth dropped out after the school suspended travelling athletic teams in the summer. No replacement was announced and the CBL would stay as a three-team league. The schedule was also released with the first four games of the schedule to be played in Princeton; no reason was given why this occurred.

As the third season started, the supposedly weak Princeton squad split its first two games with both Yale and Harvard. The Tigers then travelled to New Haven where they were beaten by Yale to drop their record to 2-3; Yale improved to 2-1. The first meeting between Harvard and Yale took place on May 25 ^th in New Haven. While some anticipated an upset by the Crimson, the Bulldogs used the game to send a message and improve their lead in the standings. In front of 4,000 screaming spectators, Yale embarrassed Harvard by a 15-3 score.

A few days later, Yale got even better news; Stagg wanted to return and pitch. The club happily accepted his offer and rode the momentum. They would not lose another game and won their third straight title handily; five-game victors over Harvard and Princeton, who tied for second. Sadly, this pennant would also be the last CBL pennant handed out.

Harvard would resign from the league the next January after a feud with Princeton over officiating when Crimson athletic teams travelled to New Jersey. The league was no more, as it could not continue with only two teams. All three ex-members of the CBL became independent and scheduled their own games as they pleased. Harvard would play neither Princeton nor Yale for a couple years as the colleges continued to feud. The Harvard-Yale dispute even spilled over into other athletic events until it was finally settled. No cause for the disputes could be found.

And so was the end of the College Baseball League. While short-lived, the league set precedents for other schools to split into their own individual conferences based on ability and location.