RG 41.2: Baseball, 1872-2015, inclusive
Extent
Extent
Scope and Contents
This series consists of materials related to the NYU baseball team dating from 1872-2015. In addition to the press, statistics, and rosters typically found in most sports-specific series (which ware described at the collection-level), items include game tickets, a scrapbook created for the 1902 season, files on individual players, and meeting minutes from the Metropolitan Collegiate Baseball Conference, of which NYU was a member. Of note is a baseball jersey from approximately the 1950s.
History of NYU Baseball
NYU's baseball program was established in the 1870s as something akin to a club sport. The team was not very successful in its early years, however, with the varsity team losing all but one of 13 games in 1902.
The team experienced a resurgence in the 1920s under coach William McCarthy. Between 1922 and 1961, he led the NYU Violets to 476 victories and 258 losses. Among the outstanding players of the 1920s was George "Kiddo" Davis, the first NYU baseball starter to break into the major leagues.
During the University's financial struggles in the early 1970s, the baseball team was discontinued. Baseball was reinstated in 1996 as a Division II club sport, joining the National Club Baseball Association (NCBA). Varsity baseball returned to NYU in spring 2015 as a Division III sport when NYU-Poly (now NYU Tandon School of Engineering), which had its own team, officially became part of NYU.