WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Old Ballgame: Baseball and Thanksgiving

Episode Date: November 17, 2023

A look at old-time baseball and Thanksgiving

Welcome to the old ball game, where we talk about the past of America's favorite pastime. I'm Tate Christensen. Today we talk about the connection between baseball and Thanksgiving. At one point, baseball, not football, was the American sport of Thanksgiving. The games played on Thanksgiving Day were not entirely organized events, but many clubs would come together to play to mark the end of the baseball season. As the evening standard once wrote, quote, In the afternoon, there were several scrub games,

that is, games which the various clubs unite and play together. The regular ball season is considered to close with Thanksgiving, though many games will doubtless be played throughout the winter when the weather will permit, end quote. In 1887, a New York Times article advertised a Thanksgiving Day game to be played on the polo grounds. Later, the Times cited 1887 as the origin of indoor baseball, which eventually morphed into the game of softball. Yale and Princeton began playing American football on Thanksgiving, and that tradition stuck around. As baseball became more organized, it arranged for its season to come to an end in October. This has been the old ballgame on Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM.