1916 Harvard Baseball Schedule

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July 22nd - 29th 2023

THIS WEEKS FEATURE

BABE RUTH

BORN FEBRUARY 6TH 1895

Babe Ruth was 21 years, 2 months, 4 days old

When Harvard played the Red Sox

on April 10th 1916 at Fenway Park

THE TIME BABE RUTH

COULD HAVE PLAYED HARVARD

By Carlton Hendricks

arvard University Varsity played the Boston Red Sox on April 10th 1916...The game is listed on the poster above as the first of the season. That's Fact 1...Fact 2. Babe Ruth played for the Red Sox from July 11th 1914 to January 5th 1920. That would be the most basic take on this poster you're about to read, but let's take a closer look...

First let's back up where we first met...I picked up this exceptional poster on eBay in June 2022...It would be considered a broadside. I was impressed from the get-go; I had never seen a college baseball poster from the teens quite like it. It came untouched in its apparent original frame with wavy glass. Remarkably bold and to the point, no graphics...yet striking nevertheless...Someone, likely a Harvard undergrad, wrote in the scores by hand...obviously an avid Harvard fan...Or possibly it belonged to a team member!...Bill Rayburn of "The Three Bills" fame took the words right out of my mouth when I showed it to him...said he'd never seen anything like it...Confirming my initial impression...But more than just a slice of Harvard life 1916...the poster gets more interesting...Come along on the journey....First though I'll clarify we'll only focus on one game listed on the poster....The first one...Harvard versus Red Sox April 10th...

To put this poster in perspective...the Harvard varsity baseball team has played many games since their first on June 27, 1863 against Brown...But they have only played one game against a World Champion team Babe Ruth was on...and there is probably only one surviving poster that advertised it...and you're looking at it...

...If you think about it...the chance of Harvard playing against Babe Ruth

was sort of like a rare astronomical event where a comet comes close to the sun...

Harvard playing the Red Sox was interesting in it's self...college vs. pro...But there was more to it...The Red Sox were the world champions then...they won the World Series in 1915 against the Philadelphia Phillies...Obviously playing Harvard was a non-league warm-up for the 1916 season...and a preliminary non-league game for Harvard...Please note that playing the Red Sox for their first game of the season was a custom of Harvard's from 1910 to 1916.

A little know fact is Harvard played in the first ever game at Fenway Park on April 9th 1912 against the Red Sox, losing 0-2. The following year Harvard again played the Red sox on April 8th 1913, losing 0-5. In 1914 Harvard did not play a pro team. In 1915 they played the Boston Braves on April 12th, losing 3-7...Then of course the 1916 Harvard vs. Red Sox game we examine today.

Regarding that very first April 9th 1912 game at Fenway Park...the facility was so new the locker rooms weren't finished and Harvard had to change into

their uniforms at an equestrian academy across the street called Park Riding School.

To determine if Ruth played that day against Harvard I used newspaper articles from the period and the Harvard Crimson...I located the Harvard Crimson transcripts from the day before the game and the day after...The Crimson was the campus newspaper for the student body.

CLICK ON PAGES TO ENLARGE

Boston Post article below was the most comprehensive

coverage found of the 1916 Harvard vs. Red Sox game

I'm a broadside freak...So I was very interested in this poster right off the bat (pun intended)...But the intriguing possibility Babe Ruth may have played against Harvard knocked it all the way to the gotta-have-it parking lot . If you think about it...the chance of Harvard playing against Babe Ruth was sort of like a rare astronomical event where a comet comes close to the sun...However, after searching newspaper articles from the period it wasn't visible from earth...or I should say... I cannot confirm Ruth played that day. The box score below from the day after the game appears to be the final say as Ruth is not listed.

...I don't think it a stretch to speculate had Ruth played the Sox would have won...

Ruth was not yet a mega star at the time of the Harvard v Red Sox game; though he was well on his way. Actually it's quite remarkable how much press he was getting so early in his career. The Red Sox had won the World series six months before but Ruth didn't play in it, except for one turn at bat as a pinch hitter for Ernie Shore, in which he grounded out. So to summarize the facts...we know he essentially didn't play in the 1915 World Series....and it appears he didn't play in the Harvard game six months later...And as we can see the Red Sox lost...for the first and only time against Harvard...I don't think it a stretch to speculate had Ruth played the Sox would have won...

Ruth playing against a college team isn't too far out...Ruth playing against Harvard is a little more interesting...Harvard had a reputation as an elite place children of privilege went...children of wealthily influential fathers, groomed at elite prep schools...Ruth's dad owned a bar...Ruth had been in a reform school for twelve years because his parents couldn't handle him...Baltimore's St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys...We can only speculate what his thoughts were about playing them...and why he apparently didn't play. The best we can do is try to analyze the time-line of what he was doing for the six months between the end of the 1915 season after winning the World Series on October 13th 1915....and April 10th 1916 when the Harvard game took place

BABE RUTH TIMELINE

FROM

LAST GAME OF 1915 SEASON OCT. 13TH

HARVARD GAME APRIL 10TH 1916

A FEW HIGHLIGHTS OF

THE BABE'S ACTIVITIES

PRIOR TO THE

RED SOX/HARVARD GAME

AKA WHAT RUTH WAS

DOING BETWEEN SEASONS

OCTOBER 13TH 1915 TO APRIL 10TH 1916

OCT 15TH 1915

Splendid and detailed report on teams return to Boston after winning 1915 World Series

OCT 18TH 1915

Five Days after
Winning World Series
Ruth returns to Baltimore to visit kids at his alma mater

St. Mary’s

OCT 25TH 1915

Ruth plays in non-league exhibition game St Mary’s All Stars VS. Albrecht Athletic Club in Baltimore

MARCH 5TH 1916

Red Sox leave for Spring Training March 11th, held at Hot Springs Ark. , Ruth to board train in St. Louis - Training lasts March 12th - 31st

MARCH 16TH 1916

Ruth excels at training

camp - pride and competition among team mates - 2 hour work-out at Majestic Park, long hike after. Temperature drop to 60 in shade

APRIL 1ST 1916

Red Sox leave Hot Springs, end of spring training, stop in Memphis for three game series with Memphis Turtles of Southern League. first pre-season game

APRIL 6TH 1916

Red Sox play Ruth's home town

Baltimore Orioles four days before

Harvard game, Shut them out 5-0, Ardent supporter Billy Sunday visits Sox, warms up with Speaker and McNally

Baseball would have to be one of the most researched institutions on the planet; proven by the train loads of volumes written. Practically every aspect of anything and everything that has ever happened in baseball has been examined and written about by hoards of passionate baseball cranks, as they were once called....I doubt though that this Ruth/Harvard game has ever been taken up or even realized till this feature...But I wouldn't be surprised if some Ruth/Red Sox historian would know more. Perhaps someone with deeper wells can add to the story. Even if Ruth didn't play...deeper details of how, and why the line up was chosen that day would be most interesting...