Light & Verity

Diamond anniversary

Yale and Wesleyan celebrate their first baseball game, 150 years ago.

Don Clark/Yale Sports Publicity

Don Clark/Yale Sports Publicity

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When the Yale and Wesleyan baseball teams squared off at Yale Field on September 26, the atmosphere was thick with history. The occasion: an exhibition game to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the first meeting between the teams—a meeting that was also the first intercollegiate baseball game for each school. The 2015 teams, sporting ceremonial throwback uniforms, played before a large crowd of luminaries, including Fay Vincent ’63LLB, the former commissioner of Major League Baseball. “History, like baseball, is circular,” Vincent said in remarks before the game. But it doesn’t necessarily repeat. In 1865, Yale topped Wesleyan 39–13 in eight innings. This go-round, Wesleyan won, 6–3.

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