Baseball
- Early history
- Mount Allison
plays ball - Intercollegiate competition
- Declining interest
Intercollegiate Competition
On 27 September 1887, the University team played the first game of a home-and-home series against St. Joseph's College, Memramcook, New Brunswick. Although Mount Allison lost this match, and the one played 11 days later, it was Mount Allison’s first ever intercollegiate competition in any sport. The Mount A. squad also sported its new colours, "cardinal and old gold," which had been adopted as the school’s official colours two years earlier. A rivalry between the two institutions in baseball grew, and the sport became more popular on campus.
In May 1888, a Ladies' College team was formed, the "Red Cap Nine," consisting of 11 players. Aside from an 1895 photograph depicting Ladies’ College baseball players (see right), there is no other indication that women’s baseball was played at Mount Allison until the beginning of WWI.
By the turn of the century, the University’s main competitor continued to be St. Joseph's College. In 1902, for example, Mount Allison played two games against St. Joseph's, but lost 14-1 and 9-1. A student from that time recalled, in an anniversary edition of The Argosy (9 March 1940):
"[Baseball] was the great event in the spring; it is at its best a truly splendid well-organized game. Mount Allison used to play home and home games with St. Joseph's and St. Joseph's always won. St. Joseph's was coached by a priest, who had been a famous ball player, and Mount Allison was always outclassed by them in baseball just as they were by us in football."
Ladies' College 'Baseball Team,' ca. 1895-96
Baseball poster, ca. 1902
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