Stagg on the Mound: An 1890 Yale vs. Harvard Baseball Scorecard Featuring Amos Alonzo Stagg

On June 24, 1890, Yale beat Harvard 7-1 at Yale Field, in a game with a future giant of American sports on the mound. Amos Alonzo Stagg arrived at Yale in 1884 intending to become a minister, and he started as a third baseman before moving to pitcher after Yale's star pitcher shifted to catcher. Athletes could play varsity sports while in graduate school at the time, and Stagg pitched Yale to five conference championships. He was good enough to turn pro. After his senior season, he was offered $4,200 to play for the New York Nationals, and he declined offers from six professional teams. Baseball wasn't where his future lay. In the fall of 1890, he took over as first-year head coach and captain of the Springfield YMCA football team, at the International YMCA Training School, now Springfield College.

That decision reshaped American sports. Stagg was an instructor at Springfield from 1890 to 1892, where Naismith had invented basketball in 1891, and he played in the first public basketball game in March 1892. He then took a job at the brand-new University of Chicago, where he spent 41 years developing much of the modern game. Stagg is credited with the huddle, the direct pass from center, the lateral, the man in motion, the backfield shift, and cross-blocking, along with the tackling dummy, uniform numbers, and the batting cage. He retired from coaching at Stockton College at age 96, and he died in 1965 at 102. A scorecard from one of his last games as a Yale pitcher captures him at the start of that story, before he walked away from baseball and changed football, basketball, and coaching.