(03-04-2016 09:25 PM)That Guy 2012 Wrote:  John Hathorn struck out 19 Ponies in a game with SMU in 1919(!) It was the first season that they fielded a varsity team.

The year may be a typo, as the Rice Baseball Fact Book says the 1919 season was cancelled (p.75), and Hathorn earned letters in 1915-18 (p.100).

Rice's first baseball team competed in 1913, the first spring of The Institute.

(03-04-2016 09:43 PM)Almadenmike Wrote:  ... the Rice Baseball Fact Book says the 1919 season was cancelled (p.75) ...

Indeed. A front-page article in the April 10, 1919, Thresher started:

Quote:With the addition of several hundred new loads of dirt to the old ball field, there is little chance for any baseball games there this season. All inter-collegiate games have been cancelled, ...

Maybe 1916 then?

According to this StableSports article, SMU played a partial season in 1915-16

Quote:The first team played during the 1915-1916 academic school year. The team that came to be known as the “Mustang-Nine” was led by team captain Tom Kincannon and head coach Ray Morrison. Morrison, known in the football world as the “father of the forward pass”, was also the head coach of the SMU football team. The rest of the world, however, was not quite ready for SMU to have a baseball team. As World War I began, the season was cut short as college students around the country joined the war effort and served their country. Baseball would return as an official varsity sport after the war in 1919.

(03-04-2016 10:21 PM)That Guy 2012 Wrote:  Maybe 1916 then?

Rice did not play SMU in 1916.

The very first Thresher (Jan. 15, 1916) gave the 1916 schedule as:

March 21-22 — Texas at Austin.
March 31-April 1 — A. & M. at College Station.
April 3-4 — Howard Payne at Houston.
April 10-11 — Tulane at New Orleans.
April 12-13 — L. S. U. at Baton Rouge.
April 17-18 — L. S. U. at Houston.
April 26-27 — Baylor at Houston.
May 1-2 — Austin College at Houston.
May 10-11 — Southwestern at Houston.
May 19 -20 — A. & M. at Houston.

(Although the headline and article said the Owls would be playing 22 games, but they listed only 20.)