With the 2019 baseball season just beginning and the first home game for the Big Red on April 2ndagainst St. Bonaventure, we look to the onset of the baseball season in years past.
At this time of the year in 1921, the Cornell interfraternity community convened to establish intramural baseball plans for the spring months. Popularity with the scheme was evident in 1919, when 42 fraternity teams formed a league. Following, in 1920, it was decided that all game scores from the intercollege, interfraternity baseball league had to be officially reported to the Sun for record-keeping. The intramural sport became so large and popular that, in 1921, representatives from participating fraternities discussed breaking up into smaller leagues according to geographic location of the houses. That year, 47 teams participated.
By 1922, the interfraternity baseball teams had been divided into a full six leagues of seven teams each. The league served a purpose no longer present in intramural sports: it served as training and scouting grounds for the Varsity team, which recruited players from an annual open tryout.
Cornell Baseball, 1923.
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