Special Collections

UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES

Baseball Rulebooks

Baseball was the first intercollegiate sport played by the Maryland Agricultural College cadets. On June 5, 1869, students at the college, under the name “Vernon Club” took on the “Star Club” of Laurel in front of “quite a number of ladies and gentlemen present to witness the friendly struggle," according to an account in the Baltimore Sun. Unfortunately the students lost by over 20 runs. Seven days later, the Aggies traveled to Annapolis to take on St. John’s College, suffering another drubbing, 34-4.

Although the University of Maryland’s baseball tradition did not have a very auspicious beginning, over 20 Terps have made it to the major leagues, including Charlie “King Kong” Keller, the only Terp to every play in the All-Star Game and the World Series.

The baseball rule books listed below were discovered among the records of the University of Maryland System President’s Office in the attic of the Inn and Conference Center in 1993. They have been digitized by the University of Maryland Libraries’ Digital Reformatting Unit as a contribution to the online history of the nation’s favorite summer past-time and to honor the legacy of UMD baseball.