December 25, 1894: The 1st Intersectional College Football Game

Walter Camp

December 25, 1894: In a manner of speaking, the 1st holiday-season college bowl game is played on this day. Certainly, it was the 1st college football game, ever, between teams from 2 different parts of the country. And it was the 2 men most responsible for the development of American football who set it up and opposed each other in it.

Walter Camp had been one of the 1st great college football players, at Yale University in the late 1870s. In 1888, he became Yale's head coach, and one of his players on that great team was Amos Alonzo Stagg. Between them, they invented pretty much every feature that turned American football from a game resembling soccer and rugby to the game that became so popular in the 20th Century.

Amos Alonzo Stagg

Both men went West to start college football programs, Stagg at the University of Chicago, Camp at the newly-founded Stanford University in the San Francisco Bay Area. They played at the Haight Street Grounds in San Francisco. Chicago beat Stanford 24-4.

The Haight Street Grounds stood from 1887 to 1895. It was actually not at Haight Street, but at the southeastern corner of Stanyan and Waller Streets, in the Haight-Ashbury district that would become the seat of the Hippie movement in the 1960s, at the southeastern corner of Golden Gate Park, about a block from where Kezar Stadium would later be built.

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December 25, 1894 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season, hockey was all-amateur, basketball was a recent invention, and this was before college football was playing bowl games, let alone on Christmas Day.

But in England, soccer, or "football" as they call it, had a tradition: To keep traveling to a minimum, and thus families together, 2 nearby teams would play at one's home ground on Christmas Day, and at the other's on the next day, December 26, Boxing Day. This tradition began to die out in the 1950s, but Boxing Day games are still played.

On December 25, 1894, the London-based team which I would eventually support, then known as Woolwich Arsenal, played, but not against a nearby team: They hosted Burslem Port Vale, at the Manor Ground in Plumstead, Kent, later to be a part of Southeast London, and won, 7-0. Patrick O'Brien scored 3 goals -- not yet known as a "hat trick" in either ice hockey or association football.

December 6, 1873: Eton vs. Yale

December 6, 1873: Eton vs. Yale, in football? Or in "foot ball," written as two words? Given the existence of the scorecard in this photo, apparently, it happened, if not officially, as the NCAA would say today.

Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut, is America's 3rd-oldest college, following Harvard, and William & Mary. They are traditionally elitist and stuck-up, and that's two of the many things that they like about themselves.

But Eton College, in Eton, Berkshire, England, makes the Yalies look like nouveau riche. Founded in 1440 by King Henry VI, intended as a sister institution to King's College, Cambridge, Eton (pronounced "EE-ton") is known for its history, wealth, and notable alumni, known as Old Etonians. It is 1 of 3 public schools (what the English call private schools), along with Harrow and Radley, to have retained the boys-only-boarding-only tradition, which means that its boys live at the school, 7 days a week, with no girls. It's been called "the nurse of England's statesmen."

I quote Richard Hershberger, a historian who tends to specialize in baseball during this period:

A group of rich former students of Eton (this is more or less redundant) are tourists in America. While in Connecticut, they get up a game with some students at Yale. This is in no sense the Eton football team. I have my doubts about this being the Yale football team, or if that even had meaning in 1873. The most interesting aspect of this game is that it shows Yale playing more or less under the Football Association rules, i.e. soccer, and doing it well enough to beat a pickup team of Eton "old boys." The dominance of rugby in American college football is still a bit in the future.

The Earl of Rosebery is an interesting figure. This is Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery. He is 26 years old at this point.

"This point" being in 1873. This photo was taken years later.

After matriculating from Eton in 1866, he went to Oxford, but was kicked out two years later. He had bought a race horse, which was prohibited to undergraduates. When the school found out, they gave him the choice of selling the horse or of leaving school. He left. You have to respect that.

His lack of a degree did not hold him back. He became UK Prime Minister in 1894. Honestly, I could not have named a Victorian prime minister not named Disraeli, Gladstone, or Palmerston, but apparently there were some. In this case, it was brief and not terribly successful, but still...

What has this to do with football? Just as Yale's performance tells us something about how football was played in America in 1873, Archie's presence tells us something about the social status of football in Britain.

The game was played at Hamilton Park in New Haven. According to a newspaper, the Brooklyn Union, "After a closely contested match, played according to the English rules, with one or two American variations mutually agreed upon, it was won by Yale." No score is mentioned, nor a citation of the goalscorers. The Hartford Courant cited Yale as having won, 2-1, with Sherman being the scorer. Neither newspaper listed Sherman's first name.

Earlier in the season, both also at Hamilton Park, on October 25, Yale beat Rutgers, 3-1; and, on November 15, Yale lost to Princeton, 3-0. So Yale were 2-1 on the "season." A few months later, Harvard played McGill University of Montreal in 2 different "codes" of football, and it led to the game that would become known outside the United States as "American football."

Hamilton Park was the first home field for Yale's football team, from 1870 until the land for Yale Field was acquired in 1884. The park hosted horse races, and was home to the New Haven Elm Citys baseball team of the National Association during the 1875 season. The Hartford Dark Blues of the National League hosted a game there in 1877.

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December 6, 1873 was a Saturday. It was the only college football game played that day. No other sporting events were played: Baseball was out of season, ice hockey barely existed, and basketball wouldn't be invented for another 18 years.

November 23, 1968: "Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29"

November 23, 1968: The most famous game in Ivy League history is played. The winners were... everybody who was involved, because it gets talked about more than most games that were glorious wins for one team or the other.

Harvard University was America's 1st college, founded in 1636 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, across the Charles River from Boston. Yale University was the 3rd, founded in 1701 and re-established a few years later in New Haven, Connecticut. (The 2nd was The College of William and Mary, in Williamsburg, Virginia.)

They first played each other in football on November 13, 1875, with the sport still in its infancy, on the Yale campus. Harvard won, 4-0 under the scoring rules of the time. But Yale took over the rivalry, going 9-0-2 through 1889. Eventually, their contest became each school's season finale, known as simply "The Game."

In 1968, both teams looked like they were among the best teams in the country, a rarity for Ivy League teams after World War I. Each went into their finale 8-0, the 1st time since 1909 that both of them were undefeated going into The Game.

Yale had Brian Dowling, an All-American quarterback from Cleveland. He had led them to 16 straight wins, and hadn't lost a game since the 6th grade. Yale student Garry Trudeau would start a comic strip titled Bull Tales, which in 1970 would become the nationally-syndicated Doonesbury. Dowling would be parodied as "B.D.," although the character and the real Dowling would turn out to be very different people. Yale also had running back Calvin Hill, who would star in the NFL, and whose son, Grant Hill, would become a Basketball Hall-of-Famer.

Harvard had a strong defense, nicknamed the Boston Stranglers after a recent serial killer. Their captain and top offensive player was running back Vic Gatto. One of their guards, good enough to make the All-Ivy League Team, was then listed as "Tom Jones." He became an actor under the name Tommy Lee Jones. His roommate was a prelaw student named Al Gore. (Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham were still 3 years away from starting Yale Law School, and George W. Bush had just graduated from Yale.)

The game was played at Harvard Stadium, but that didn't matter to the oddsmakers, who made Yale, then ranked in the national Top 20, heavy favorites. The stadium's seating capacity was then listed as 57,750, and there wasn't a seat to be had, despite the weather being cold, with the wind blasting off the Charles. Scalpers were demanding $100 for tickets -- about $831 in today's money. God only knows what would have been charged if Internet ticket brokers were possible at the time.

At first, Yale justified their classification as favorites: Dowling ran for a touchdown, then passed to Hill for another, then threw another. In the 2nd quarter, the Bulldogs led 22-0. No team had scored that many off the Crimson in an entire game since Yale themselves did it in a 24-20 win in New Haven the year before.

Harvard managed a touchdown before the half, but missed the extra point. It was 22-6. Early in the 2nd half, Yale fumbled a punt, and Harvard recovered in the end zone. This time, the extra point was converted, and Harvard was within 22-13. But early in the 4th quarter, Dowling took over again, drove the Elis down the Allston pitch, and scored himself to put his team up 29-13.

With 2 minutes left, Yale still led 29-13. And, due to injuries, Harvard was left with their backup quarterback, Frank Champi. But he was undeterred, and got the Crimson over the goal line with 42 seconds left on the clock. A 2-point conversion failed, but Yale was called for pass interference. Gus Crim took the ball in on their 2nd chance, so it was Yale 29, Harvard 21.

The most obvious onside kick in the history of football was coming. But Harvard managed to recover it. Time was running out. Champi got the Crimson to the Bulldogs' 8-yard line with 3 seconds left. On the last play of regulation, he was flushed out of the pocket, but still managed to get a pass off. Gatto caught it, and took it in. Yale 29, Harvard 27.

Fans poured onto the field. But there was still a 2-point conversion to be attempted. The fans were cleared off. Champi found Pete Varney. He would appear in 69 games as a catcher for the Chicago White Sox and the Atlanta Braves from 1973 to 1976, serve as head baseball coach at Brandeis University in nearby Waltham, Massachusetts, and coach for years in the Cape Cod Baseball League. Nothing he did matched the pass he caught from Frank Champi with no time on the clock.

It was a tie. Along with Notre Dame's games with Army in 1946 and Michigan State in 1966 -- both known as "The Game of the Century" -- this is the most famous tie in football history. Why not? It remains the game of the century as far as the Ivy League is concerned.

The next day, the Harvard Crimson newspaper printed a headline: "HARVARD BEATS YALE, 29-29." In 2008, on the game's 40th Anniversary, a documentary film would use that headline as its title.

Did Harvard "win"? Yale coach Carm Cozza later admitted, "That tie was the worst loss of my career."

I mentioned Army in 1946. After their tie against Notre Dame, they had a similar season-closing rivalry game, with Navy in Philadelphia. They led 21-0. Navy came back, and was down 21-18, and was on Army's 3-yard line with time for one more play. Navy coach Tom Hamilton tried to run it in, and failed. When asked why he didn't go for the tying field goal, he spoke words that have entered the American lexicon: "A tie is like kissing your sister."

For Harvard, this tie was more like kissing your sister's really hot best friend. For Yale, this tie was like kissing your sister's other best friend. You know: The only with the "great personality."

Look at it this way: Since the league's official establishment for the 1956 season, Yale have won its title outright in 1956, 1960, 1967, 1977, 1979, 1980 and 2017; and won at least a share of it in 1968, 1969, 1974, 1976, 1981, 1989, 1999, 2006 and 2019. But do any of those teams get talked about, even as a "great team," other than among Yalies? No.

The 1968 Yale Bulldogs, and the 1968 Harvard Crimson, both get talked about, as great teams that played a great game.

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November 23, 1968 was a Saturday. There were other big college football rivalry games played that day:

* Number 1 USC beat UCLA, 28-16 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. But the next week, a tie with Notre Dame cost them the Number 1 ranking. They ended up losing the Rose Bowl, and thus the National Championship, to Ohio State.

* Number 2 Ohio State beat Number 4 Michigan, 50-14 at Ohio Stadium in Columbus. It was said that Buckeye coach Woody Hayes purposely ran up the score. The Wolverines did not forget, and the next year's game between the rivals was an epic win for Michigan.

* Number 3 Penn State beat the University of Pittsburgh, 65-9 at Pitt Stadium.

* Number 5 Georgia were idle, between wins over rivals Auburn and Georgia Tech.

* Number 6 Arkansas beat Texas Tech, 42-7 at Jones Stadium in Lubbock, Texas. Okay, that's not a rivalry game.

* Number 7 Kansas beat Number 13 Missouri, 21-19 at Memorial Stadium (now Faurot Field) in Columbia, Missouri, to clinch the Big Eight Conference title.

* Number 8 Tennessee beat Kentucky, 24-7 at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee.

* Number 9 Louisiana State beat Tulane, 34-10 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans.

* Number 10 Texas were idle, between wins over Texas Christian and Texas A&M.

* Number 11 Notre Dame were idle, between a win over Georgia Tech and a tie against USC.

* Number 12 Purdue beat Indiana, 38-35 at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, Indiana.

* Number 14 Oklahoma beat Nebraska, 47-0 at Owen Field in Norman, Oklahoma.

* Number 15 Alabama were idle, between wins over Miami and arch-rival Auburn.

* Number 16 Oregon State beat Oregon, 41-19 at Parker Stadium (now Reser Stadium) in Corvallis, Oregon.

* Number 17 Auburn were idle, between losses to rivals Georgia and Alabama.

* Number 18 California was upset by Stanford, 20-0 at Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, California.

* Virginia beat Maryland, 28-23 at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, Virginia.

* North Carolina beat Duke, 23-14 at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. If Yale felt bad, think of how Duke felt: That was the only Atlantic Coast Conference game Carolina won all season, and it was against their greatest rival.

* South Carolina beat Clemson, 7-3 at Memorial Stadium in Clemson, South Carolina.

* Minnesota beat Wisconsin, 23-15 at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin.

* Washington State beat Washington, 24-0 at Joe Albi Stadium in Spokane, Washington. "Wazzu" used Albi Stadium for games too big for their 23,500-seat Rogers Stadium, before building Martin Stadium in 1972.

* Army were idle, between wins over Pittsburgh and Navy.

* Navy were idle, between losses to Syracuse and Army.

* In New York City, Columbia beat Brown, 46-20 at Baker Field.

* In New Jersey, Princeton beat Cornell, 41-13 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton.

* And Rutgers beat Colgate, 55-34 at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway.

In high school football, my alma mater, East Brunswick, beat Sayreville, 41-0 at War Memorial Stadium in Sayreville, clinching a Conference Championship.

There were 6 games played in the NBA that day:

* The New York Knicks beat the Boston Celtics, 111-100 at the new Madison Square Garden.

* The Baltimore Bullets beat the Detroit Pistons, 128-127 at the Baltimore Civic Center (now the CFG Bank Arena). Dave Bing scored 39 in a losing effort for the Pistons.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Cincinnati Royals, 120-105 at the Cincinnati Gardens.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Chicago Bulls, 114-96 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Phoenix Suns, 115-112 at the Milwaukee Arena. In 1974, it was renamed the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.

* And the San Francisco Warriors beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 132-119 at the Cow Palace outside San Francisco in Daly City, California.

There were 2 games played in the American Basketball Association:

* The New York Nets beat the Minnesota Muskies, 110-105 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* And the Miami Floridians beat the Indiana Pacers, 126-107 at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

And the entire NHL was in action that day:

* The New York Rangers lost to the team that would then have been considered their arch-rivals, the Boston Bruins, 5-1 at the Boston Garden.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Minnesota North Stars, 4-3 at the Montreal Forum.

* The Oakland Seals beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 2-1 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Pittsburgh Penguins and the Los Angeles Kings played to a tie, 2-2 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 5-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The St. Louis Blues beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Black Hawks, 1-0 at the St. Louis Arena.

Also, Arsenal lost to Chelsea, 1-0 at Highbury in North London.

November 21, 1914: The Yale Bowl Opens

November 21, 1914: The Yale Bowl opens, a mile and a half west of the main campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Arch-rival Harvard spoil the party, as the Crimson beat the Bulldogs, 36-0. Yale were a good team that season, going 6-2. But Harvard might have been the best team in the country, going 7-0-2.

Prior to the Yale Bowl, Yale had played since 1884 at Yale Field, across Derby Avenue, where they built the current baseball version of Yale Field in 1928. It seated 33,000 fans, while the Yale Bowl seated 70,896. After decades of deterioration, a much-needed renovation was completed in 2006, with a more modern facility, and wider seats, reducing seating capacity to 61,446.

While Yale claim 27 retroactively-awarded National Championships, only one of these, in 1927, has been won since the Yale Bowl opened. The Ivy League was founded in 1954, and in 2022, Yale won its 17th Ivy League title. (UPDATE: In 2023, they won their 18th.)

With the combined Harvard-Yale logo at midfield

When the New York Giants needed a temporary home between the October 1973 closing of the original Yankee Stadium and the October 1976 opening of Giants Stadium, they considered several facilities in the New York Tri-State Area. Being 76 miles northeast of Midtown Manhattan, the Yale Bowl was at the very edge of that area.

Indeed, New Haven is the terminus of one of the lines of what's now the Metro-North Commuter railroad. And, with ties to both New York and New England, the city often serves as something of a "neutral zone" between New York and Boston sports fandoms.

Nevertheless, the Giants played 5 home games at the ale Bowl in 1973, and 7 in 1974, before being allowed to use Shea Stadium in Queens for the 1975 season. The commute, the traffic and the parking situation were terrible, and as the Giants got worse and worse, attendance dropped from a peak of 70,168 to a trough of 21,170. The Giants went 1-11 at the Yale Bowl, including a 1974 overtime loss to the Jets -- and that doesn't include the 1st game ever played between the Giants and the Jets, a 1969 preseason game at the Yale Bowl, which the Jets also won.

In the 1976 and 1977 seasons, the Connecticut Bicentennials of the North American Soccer League played at the Yale Bowl. But, except for the 17,302 they got for a 1977 game against the Pelé-led New York Cosmos, they never got more than 7,000 fans.

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November 21, 1914 was a Saturday. These other notable college football games were played that day:

* Army beat Springfield College, 13-6 on The Plain in West Point, New York. Army went 9-0 that season.

* Navy beat Ursinus, 33-2 at Worden Field in Annapolis, Maryland.

* Illinois beat Wisconsin, 24-9 at Randall Field in Madison, Wisconsin. Illinois went 7-0, and won the title of the Western Conference, which later became the Big Ten.

* Nebraska beat Iowa, 16-7 at Iowa Field in Iowa City. Nebraska finished 7-0-1 and won the Missouri Valley Conference title.

* Tennessee did not play that week. They went 9-0, and won the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association title.

* Texas also did not play that week. They went 8-0, and won the 1st-ever Southwest Conference title.

* Rivalry: Lehigh beat Lafayette, 17-7 at March Field in Easton, Pennsylvania.

* Rivalry: Purdue beat Indiana, 23-13 at Stuart Field in West Lafayette, Indiana.

* Rivalry: Minnesota beat the University of Chicago, 13-7 at Stagg Field in Chicago.

* Rivalry: Missouri beat Kansas, 10-7 at McCook Field in Lawrence, Kansas.

* Among New York City teams, New York University lost to Wesleyan, 29-13 at Ohio Field in The Bronx; Fordham beat Boston College, 14-3 at Fordham Field in The Bronx; and Columbia had suspended its program for the season.

* And for the New Jersey schools, Rutgers beat the Stevens Institute of Technology, 83-0 at Castle Field in Hoboken; while Princeton had concluded its season the week before, losing to Yale.

Baseball was out of season. Professional basketball barely existed. And, in that era, it was a little early for hockey season to start.

In English soccer, North London team Arsenal went to Yorkshire, and lost to Huddersfield Town, 3-0 at Leeds Road.

November 21, 1877: Thomas Edison Invents the Phonograph

November 21, 1877: Thomas Edison invents the phonograph at his laboratory in the Menlo Park section of Raritan Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey. It is the 1st device capable of recording sound.

It recorded on tinfoil around a grooved cylinder. Into its speaker -- partly because it was the only way it could be done, and partly because he was hard of hearing -- Edison shouted into it, an old nursery rhyme:

Mary had a little lamb!
Its fleece was white as snow!

And everywhere that Mary went

the lamb was sure to go!

Although that recording does not survive, Edison recorded it again for a demonstration years later, and that one does survive.

Edison already had many patents to his name, making him wealthy. But the phonograph was the one that first got him national attention. Over the next few years, other scientists, including telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell, made improvements that made the recording industry possible.

Edison died in 1931. In 1954, to differentiate itself from the other towns in New Jersey named Raritan, the town that included the neighborhood of Menlo Park changed its name to the Township of Edison. It later erected a monument on the site of Edison's laboratory, a "Light Tower" that referenced his invention of the incandescent lamp, the 1st practical light bulb, in 1879.

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November 21, 1877 was a Wednesday. Traditionally, this is not a day on which football games are played. But one was: On what was then its home field, Hamilton Park in New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University beat Trinity College of Hartford, 7-0.

November 13, 1875: The 1st Harvard-Yale Game

November 13, 1875: Harvard University and Yale University, America's oldest and 3rd-oldest colleges, and both pioneers of college football, play each other in the sport for the 1st time. The game is played at Hamilton Park, a horse-racing track in New Haven, Connecticut, and, with one touchdown, under the scoring system of the time, Harvard won, 4-0.

The first American intercollegiate sporting event took place on August 3, 1852, after Yale invited Harvard to a race of crews. Harvard won "The Boat Race" on that 1st occasion. The first intercollegiate contests in ice hockey, soccer, and 5-on-5 basketball featured teams from Harvard and Yale.

Many now century-old, or older, aspects of American football were introduced by Harvard or Yale students or athletes. Yale introduced cheerleading at athletic events in 1890, and tailgate parties in 1905. Harvard introduced spring practice to collegiate football March 14, 1889.

Yalies sang "Hold the Fort" during the 1892 Harvard game, considered the first public performance of a collegiate "fight song." It predated "Boola Boola," in 1900, and what became their official fight song, "Bull Dog," written by Cole Porter when he was a senior at Yale in 1913.

In 1883, Harvard and Yale played each other at the Polo Grounds in New York, with Yale winning, 23-2. From 1891 to 1894, they played each other at Hampden Park in Springfield, Massachusetts. There was fan violence at the 1894 game, won by Yale, 12-4, leading to the schools taking the next 2 seasons off. They resumed in 1897, and have alternated between Boston and New Haven ever since.

They took 1917 and 1918 off due to World War I; 1943, 1944 and 1945 due to World War II; and 2020, due to COVID. But, since WWII, they have played at Harvard Stadium (built in 1903) in even-numbered years, and the Yale Bowl (built in 1914) in odd-numbered years. An exception was made in 2018, when Harvard, having the choice of home field, talked Yale into playing at Fenway Park in Boston. Harvard won that one, 45-27, making it the highest-scoring contest in the history of "The Game."

November 17, 2018

Both teams went into the 1900 game undefeated, and Yale won, 28-0. The 1908 game saw both teams undefeated as well, and Harvard won, 4-0. In 1914, Harvard spoiled the opening of the Yale Bowl, winning 36-0.

The Yale Bowl, with the field marked for "The Game"

Before the opening kickoff of the 1923 game, Yale coach Dwight Jones told his undefeated Bulldogs, "Gentlemen, you are about to play Harvard. You will never do anything else so important for the rest of your lives."

They certainly wouldn't have done so under worse conditions: According to the era's greatest sportswriter, Grantland Rice, the field at Harvard Stadium was "a gridiron of seventeen lakes, five quagmires and a water hazard." Perhaps it was fitting that the key play, a return of a fumble 67 yards for a touchdown, was made by a man named Raymond Pond, known as Ducky. Yale won, 13-0. Pond later served as Yale's head coach, from 1934 to 1940.

In 1947, the only way for a Harvard football player to win his varsity letter was to play in the Yale game. Legend has it that, knowing this, Robert F. Kennedy played in the Harvard-Yale game on a broken leg. In 1955, his brother, Ted Kennedy, caught a touchdown pass against Yale. What the Kennedy legend doesn't say is that Bobby really played on "only" a sprained ankle, and that Yale won both of these games. (Ted was good enough to receive interest from the Green Bay Packers, but his father told him to go to law school instead.)

Harvard Stadium

Both teams were undefeated going into the 1968 game at Harvard Stadium, making it the 1st Ivy League title decider between them. Yale led 29-13 with 42 seconds to go, but Harvard scored 2 touchdowns and 2 2-point conversions to tie the game, and split the honors. The Harvard Crimson newspaper had the headline: "HARVARD BEATS YALE, 29-29."

November 23, 1968

In 1982, students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard's Cambridge neighbors, pulled one of the great college football pranks, pushing a balloon with the letters "MIT" on it through the turf at Harvard Stadium. (Harvard won, 45-7.) Not to be outdone, a little over a year later, during the 1984 Rose Bowl, students at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena hacked into the Rose Bowl scoreboard, so that what should have read "UCLA 38" and "ILLINOIS 9" read "CALTECH 38" and "MIT 9." (UCLA ended up winning, 45-9.)

November 20, 1982

Going into the 2022 game, Yale leads the all-time series, with 69 wins to Harvard's 60, while there have been 8 ties. (UPDATE: Through the 2024 game, Yale leads, 71-61.)

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November 13, 1875 was a Saturday. This was still early in the history of football, college or otherwise. Only 1 other game was played that day: Princeton (then still known as the College of New Jersey) beat Columbia, 6-2 at University Field in Princeton, New Jersey.

November 12, 1892: The 1st Pro Football Player

November 12, 1892: For the 1st time -- as far as is known today -- a is paid to play the sport of American football.

William Walter Heffelfinger was born on December 20, 1867 in Minneapolis. "Pudge" played baseball and football at Central High School in Minneapolis before making his way to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Playing on both the offensive and defensive lines, Heffelfinger was named to Yale head coach Walter Camp's All-American Team 3 times.

Yale was a major football power during that time, and Heffelfinger helped lead the team to undefeated seasons in 1888 and 1891, accompanying one-loss seasons in 1889 and 1890. The 1888 team amazingly outscored their opponents 698-0 that season. Their biggest win was a 105-0 demolition of Wesleyan University of Middletown, Connecticut; their narrowest, a 28-0 win over the Crescent Athletic Club at Washington Park in Brooklyn, then the home of the baseball team that would become known as the Brooklyn Dodgers. Oddly, that season, Yale did not play the school already considered their arch-rivals, Harvard University.

At 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds. Heffelfinger was considered especially big for his time, and towered over his opponents. His size allowed him to wreak havoc on opposing lines, where it was said he would typically take out two to three players at a time. He also is credited with introducing the "pulling guard" play. In the 1920s, the great sportswriter Grantland Rice referred to Heffelfinger as the greatest guard of all time. "Pudge" also lettered in baseball, rowing, and track.

For many years, it was believed that the 1st game in which someone was paid to play American-style football occurred on September 3, 1895, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, about 40 miles east of Pittsburgh. The Latrobe Athletic Association defeated the Jeannette Athletic Club, 12-0 (a touchdown was then worth 4 points, so this was three touchdowns to none), despite Jeannette having paid Joh Brallier $10 (about $355 in 2022 money) to play as their quarterback.

Latrobe were, however, so impressed with Brallier that they hired him as a player-coach, and he remained with them through 1907, his coaching record an amazing 36-3-4. He died in 1960, and was the earliest man to have admitted to being paid to play football.

But in the 1960s, Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney was presented with documents that proved an earlier man was paid to play the game. Pudge Heffelfinger was paid $500 (about $16,400 in 2022 money) to play one game for the Pittsburgh-based Allegheny Athletic Association on November 12, 1892, at Exposition Park, then the home of baseball's Pittsburgh Pirates. He helped Allegheny defeat its archrival, the Pittsburgh Athletic Club, 4-0, the one touchdown scored when Heffelfinger picked up a fumble and ran it in.

Heffelfinger soon began a career in coaching, where he made stops at the University of California, Lehigh University, and the University of Minnesota. He also frequently returned to Yale to help the football team prepare for contests against rivals Harvard and Princeton.

In the 1930s, he founded Heffelfinger Publications, which produced sales booklets for football and baseball equipment. He also spent time working for his father's shoe business, and later in real estate. He also went on to find success in politics. He was a Minnesota delegate to the Republican National Conventions in 1904 and 1908. He served as Hennepin County Commissioner (the County that includes Minneapolis) from 1924 to 1948, and ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1930. (That was a bad year for Republicans, as it was the 1st Congressional election of the Great Depression.)

Despite his nickname, suggesting that he was overweight, "Pudge" maintained his playing shape throughout his life. Even in his 40s, it was common for him to return to Yale, where the coach would give him a jersey and let him play with the second team during practice. In the early 1920s, he played in a pro game against the Columbus Panhandles which featured the famous Nesser brothers. He continued as a regular in pro charity games up until his mid-60s. He played his last organized football game in a charity event in Minneapolis in 1933, at the age of 65.

He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951, and died on April 2, 1954 at the age of 86. He had never publicly discussed his role as a professional football pioneer, unlike Brallier. (As far as I can determine, the two men never met.) He was buried at the small Hawley Cemetery outside Blessing, Texas, where he was living at the time, near Houston.

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November 12, 1892 was a Saturday. The only sport in action that day was college football, with these 9 games being played:

* Harvard beat the Boston Athletic Club, 16-12 in Boston.

* Cornell beat the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 44-12 on MIT's campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, outside Boston.

* Lafayette and Mount Hermon played to a tie, 12-12 on Mount Hermon's campus in Gill, Massachusetts.

* Amherst beat Trinity, 21-8 on Trinity's campus in Hartford, Connecticut.

* Bowdoin beat Brown, 8-0 on Brown's campus in Providence, Rhode Island.

* Yale beat the University of Pennsylvania, 28-0 at Manhattan Field, next-door to the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan.

* Lafayette beat the Orange Athletic Club, 30-0 in Orange, New Jersey, outside Newark.

* Michigan beat the University of Chicago, 18-10 at Olympic Park in Toledo, Ohio.

* And Northwestern Beat Lake Forest, 18-0 in Lake Forest, Illinois, outside Chicago.

November 6, 1888: Cleveland vs. Harrison I

November 6, 1888: Benjamin Harrison is elected the 23rd President of the United States. The former U.S. Senator from Indiana, and grandson of 9th President William Henry Harrison, wins 233 Electoral Votes, defeating incumbent President Grover Cleveland, who had 168.

But Cleveland won the popular vote, 48.6 percent to 47.8. Matthew Quay, Republican boss of Pennsylvania, practically came out and admitted that he had the State's 30 Electoral Votes stolen for Harrison. If true (and it probably is), then the vote should have been 203-198 in Harrison's favor. Meaning that, if 1 more State was "stolen," then Cleveland should have been re-elected.

Indeed, 4 years later, after a hard Presidency with recession and labor strife, Harrison lost his bid for re-election, and Cleveland became the only former President ever to regain the office. (UPDATE: Donald Trump became the 2nd, in 2024.)

Harrison statue, Indianapolis

Roy Gordon played Harrison in the 1952 film Stars and Stripes Forever.

The only Benjamin Harrison High School is in Cayey, Puerto Rico. A fictional school with that name was depicted in the MTV series Finding Carter.

Only one American ship has ever been named Benjamin Harrison, and it wasn't for the 23rd President. Rather, SS Benjamin Harrison was a Liberty ship named for his great-grandfather, William Henry's father, a Signer of the Declaration of Independence. It only lasted 1 year, from March 1942 to March 1943, when it was attacked and scuttled.

The last surviving member of Harrison's Cabinet was John Wanamaker, who served as Postmaster General, and lived until 1922.

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November 6, 1888 was a Tuesday. The baseball season was over. Hockey was still all-amateur. And basketball hadn't been invented yet.

But there was one college football game played that day: Yale University beat the Brooklyn-based Crescent Athletic Club, at Washington Park, home of the team that would become the Brooklyn Dodgers. 

June 28, 1947: The 1st College World Series

The 1947 Cal Golden Bears, National Champions

June 28, 1947: The 1st NCAA Baseball Tournament Final, the 1st College World Series, is played at Hyames Field, on the campus of Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo, Michigan. It is an East vs. West matchup, as the University of California, having already won the day before, 17-4, defeat Yale University again, 8-7.

The Cal team featured Jackie Jensen, who would also play for them in the 1949 Rose Bowl. He went on to win the World Series with the New York Yankees in 1952, 1953 and 1956; win the American League Most Valuable Player award with the Boston Red Sox in 1958; make 3 All-Star Games; appear on the TV series Home Run Derby at the start of the 1960 season; and retire due to a fear of flying, after just 199 career home runs.

He remains the only player ever to play in the World Series, the College World Series, and the Rose Bowl. Chuck Essegian is the only other player to play in both the major-league World Series (in his case, with the 1959 Los Angeles Dodgers) and the Rose Bowl (1952, with Stanford).

Yale returned to the CWS in 1948, losing to another West Coast team, the University of Southern California (USC). Both times, Yale's 1st baseman was George H.W. Bush, who didn't play in Major League Baseball, but went into politics, eventually being elected the 41st President of the United States in 1988.

After its 1st 2 seasons, in Kalamazoo, the tournament was moved to Lawrence Stadium in Wichita, Kansas for 1949. Since 1950, it has been held in Omaha, Nebraska, first at what became known as Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium, and then, from 2011 onward, at Charles Schwab Field Omaha.

In 2008, with the rise of women's college softball, the names of the tournaments have been the Men's College World Series and the Women's College World Series. Both tournaments start with 64 teams, in 8 regions, and the 8 regional winners play in the CWS, in 2 4-team double-elimination tournaments, with the winners of each bracket playing a best-2-out-of-3 championship series.

Given the regional ability to play more games in better weather, it is not surprising that the most successful teams have been in the Sun Belt. USC have won 12 National Championships, Louisiana State University (LSU) 6, the University of Texas 6, Arizona State 5; and 4 each have been won by Arizona, the University of Miami, and California State University at Fullerton. Among Winter States, the University of Minnesota and Oregon State University have done the best, winning 3 each.

The Women's College World Series, though not yet under that name, was 1st played in 1969. As with the men, the Sun Belt dominates: The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) have won 12 titles, while Arizona have won 8, Oklahoma 6, and no other school has won more than 2.

(UPDATE: In 2023, the LSU men and the Oklahoma women each won a 7th title. The Oklahoma women won an 8th in 2024.)

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June 28, 1947 was a Saturday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 5-2 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Randy Gumpert went the distance for the win. George McQuinn and Tommy Henrich hit home runs. Joe DiMaggio went 1-for-2 with 2 walks. Rookie Yogi Berra went 2-for-4.

* The New York Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 14-6 at the Polo Grounds.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Boston Braves, 5-4 at Braves Field in Boston. Earl Torgeson doubled Tommy Holmes home with the winning run in the bottom of the 9th inning. For the Dodgers, Johnny "Spider" Jorgenson and Fred "Dixie" Walker hit home runs. They were among the players phased out after this Pennant-winning season, because they couldn't get along with Jackie Robinson, who went 1-for-3 with 2 walks.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Washington Senators, 8-0 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Denny Galehouse pitched a 4-hit shutout. Ted Williams went 2-for-3 with 2 walks and an RBI.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-2 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the St. Louis Browns, 6-3 at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit.

* The Chicago Cubs swept a doubleheader from the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-2 and 6-5 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* And the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Cincinnati Reds, 8-7 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Stan Musial went 2-for-4 with a walk and 2 RBIs.