The only intercollegiate contest of which I had any
recollection, and as it seems the first ever to take place, was a ball
game at Pittsfield between Williams and Amherst. Amherst was the
challenging party, and the college by vote selected its team with much
care and went forth to the contest with strong hopes. The game was not
lacking in excitement. It was none of your new-fangled, umpire-ridden
matches: the modern type of base-ball had not, of course, been
invented. Foul balls were unknown, the sphere could be knocked toward
any quarter of the earth or sky; runners between bases could be pelted
with it by any of the outfielders. I think that the score stood
something like 60 to 40, and it was not in favor of Williams. It was a
melancholy company that trailed homeward after this contest past the
Lanesboro pond; but since then I understand that times have changed.
[Dr. Gladden has embodied his college reminiscences more fully in his
recent volume _Recollections_, wherein is told also the story of "The
Mountains." (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1909.)]
_Literary Monthly_, 1893.
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