rom the time of the Civil War, for it was in 1863 that baseball was
first introduced among the students. Two men are given the credit, John
M. Hinchman, '62-'65, who had been a member of the Detroit Club, and
E.L. Grant, '66, who as a freshman became interested in accounts of the
game as it was being played by a few clubs in and around New York. With
some of his friends he wrote for information in the spring of 1863, and
later ordered bases, balls and clubs, and proceeded to lay out a diamond
on the northeast corner of the Campus which was afterward maintained by
the University.

Baseball in those days differed considerably from the present game; the
pitcher was restricted to an underhand delivery; the catch of a foul
bound meant an "out"; strikes were not called; and bases on balls were
unknown; while owing to the straight-arm pitching, the batting was much
heavier and the scores larger. There was not much of a team in 1863, but
the effort resulted in the organization of the first University Baseball
Club in the spring of 1864, with Hinchman, who was the catcher, as
president and captain. The members of the team had no uniforms and paid
their own expenses, as no admission was charged for the games. While the
opposing teams and the scores are not on record, the nine was judged
highly successful and was very popular. In the fall of 1865 the team
defeated Jackson, Ypsilanti, and Dexter and was in turn defeated by a
team from Lodi Township near Ann Arbor. General interest in the game was
evidently spreading rapidly.

In 1867 the Club was groomed for the championship of the State; student
subscriptions were solicited; class nines were formed to give them
sufficient practice, and the dignity of white uniforms was at last
attained. Finally the team, accompanied by seventy supporters,--it was
long before the day of "rooters,"--traveled to Detroit and met the
Detroit Champions. The game lasted three hours and a half, included six
home runs, and was won by the University with the wholly satisfactory
score of 70 to 18, Detroit being unable to hit Blackburn the University
pitcher sufficiently, though, judged by modern standards, his record was
not exactly a "shut-out." A return game, however, played in the fall
resulted in the defeat of the University 36 to 20, while the final game
of the series, a year later, ran to eleven innings with the University
finally winning 26 to 24. Soon after this the Detroit team disbanded and
for so