The Helmuth-Ingalls Legion Baseball Team hosted the Moran Legion team on June 6 at Hamilton College's Royce Baseball field. A ceremony sponsored by the American Legion preceded the game. It was the first Clinton American Legion baseball team since 1997.
Richard Donahoe, Helmuth-Ingalls American Legion commander, said, "The American Legion is interested in helping youth in the community. With the help of lots of volunteers, Richard Hunt (Clinton High School principal) and I got the team back on the field."
Immediately before the game an American Legion Color Guard bearing four flags and rifles executed maneuvers, and a trumpeter from Clinton Central School played the national anthem. The first ball was thrown out by a legionnaire, Ed Ingalls, whose brothers were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The Clinton post was named in honor of Richard and Theodore Ingalls on June 5, 1947, and the Color Guard appearing at the baseball game will wear special patches in memory of those who died.
Baseball came to Clinton and Hamilton College in the 1860s when Elihu Root (Class of 1864) formed the first baseball club.It is thought that Root used influence with his father, Oren, who was a professor of mathematics, to get "a spot of ground suitable for Cricket and Base Ball playing." The students cleared the ground themselves and provided their own equipment. Baseball remained the pre-eminent sport at Hamilton until the late nineteenth century.
Hamilton College baseball currently competes in the NESCAC conference.
Pictured here is history professor and baseball fan Bob Paquette with legionnaire commander Richard Donahoe.