Next Saturday begins College Football Rivalry Week, and it includes the original rivalry: Harvard vs. Yale. Or, as they call it, The Game.
Not "The Big Game." "The Game."
*
Before You Go. While New Haven weather is practically identical to New York City weather, Boston weather is a little different, being a little bit further north. Mark Twain, who lived the last few years of his life in nearby Hartford, said, "If you don’t like the weather in New England, wait a minute."
You should check the websites of the
Boston Globe and the
Boston Herald -- or the
New Haven Register -- before you leave. For the moment, they're predicting mid-40s by day and the high 30s by night for Saturday, with a chance of rain.
Wind is sometimes an issue inside Fenway Park, and it might be one if this game were being played in Harvard Stadium, which is just inland from the Charles River. But it shouldn't be one if it's played in the Yale Bowl in New Haven.
The Berkeley Building, a.k.a. the Old John Hancock Building, has a spire that lights up, and is a weather beacon, complete with poem:
Steady blue, clear view.
Flashing blue, clouds due.
Steady red, rain ahead.
Flashing red, snow instead.
If it flashes red during the baseball season, that doesn't mean snow. It means the game has been called off. Or, as one wag added to the poem:
But if it's baseball time and Boston
and the weather is to blame
if you see the light is flashing red
that means there'll be no game.
If the game is at Harvard, leave any New York sports team gear you may have at home. Boston is the easternmost city in Major League Baseball (and in the other North American sports leagues, too, and will remain so even if Quebec City returns to the NHL), but it is still in the Eastern Time Zone, so adjusting your watch and your smartphone clock is not necessary. And, of course, despite the silliness of the concept of "Red Sox Nation," you do not need a passport to cross the New Haven City Line, or to change your money.
Tickets. This is "The Game," so tickets are in short supply. But, when available, all seats at Harvard home games are $25. For Yale, all tickets are $20. This is the Ivy League, which has not been "major college football" for a long time.
Getting There. It's 81 miles by road from Times Square to the New Haven Green, and 214 miles to Boston's Downtown Crossing. Getting to either city is fairly easy. However, I do
not recommend driving in or around Boston, including Cambridge, especially if you have Yankee paraphernalia on your car (bumper sticker, license-plate holder, decals, etc.). Chances are, it won't get vandalized... but you never know.
To Yale, it's fairly easy: Just take Interstate 95 North into Connecticut, to Exit 48 in New Haven. That should take about 2 hours. From the Green, take Chapel Street 2 miles west, and the Yale Bowl will be on your left.
Union Station, a mile south of the Green at 50 Union Avenue, serves Amtrak, Metro-North and Greyhound. Amtrak out of Penn Station is a lot more expensive than Metro-North, and doesn't save that much time, so take Metro-North's New Haven Line out of Grand Central Terminal. It takes 2 hours and 23 minutes, and is $47 round-trip. Greyhound from Port Authority to New Haven is $46 round-trip, but it can drop to $28 with advanced purchase.
To Harvard: When you get to New Haven, take Interstate 91 North toward Hartford. When you reach Hartford, take Exit 29 to Interstate 84, which you will take into Massachusetts and all the way to its end, where it merges with Interstate 90, the Massachusetts Turnpike. (And the locals call it "the Mass Pike" – never "the Turnpike" like we do in New Jersey.)
Theoretically, you could take I-95 all the way to Boston as well, but that will take you through downtown Providence, Rhode Island, up to the Boston suburbs. I like Providence as a city, but that route is longer by both miles and time than the route described above.
Although you will see Fenway Park, or at least its light towers, from the Mass Pike a couple of minutes before you reach the exit for the park, you'll take Exit 22 for "Prudential Center" – not to be confused with the Newark arena that is home to the New Jersey Devils. This is a skyscraper with a major area mall on its 1st 2 levels. You will end up on Huntington Avenue, and make a right on Belvidere Street, then a left on Boylston Street, and then a right on Ipswich Street, which will take you to Fenway's parking deck.
If all goes well, and you make one rest stop (preferably around Hartford, roughly the halfway point), and you don't get seriously delayed by traffic within the city limits of either New York or Boston (either of which is
very possible), you should be able to make the trip in under 5 hours.
But, please, do yourself a favor and get a hotel outside the city. It's not just that hotels in Boston proper are expensive, unless you want to try one of the thousands of bed-and-breakfasts with their communal bathrooms. It's also that Boston drivers are said to come in 2 classes, depending on how big their car is: Homicidal and suicidal.
So my recommendation is that, whenever a Yankee series in Boston approaches on the schedule, whatever your plans are for going, bag them, and make your game ticket and lodging plans for the
next series.
For any lodging in Cambridge rather than in Boston proper, take Exit 18 off the Mass Pike and follow the signs for Cambridge, across the Charles River to the north. For lodging in Newton, Exit 15, 16 or 17. For lodging south of the city -- in, for example, Quincy -- take Exit 15 off the Mass Pike, for I-95/495 South (Boston's "beltway," in which case, it might be more convenient to take I-95 all the way up), to Exits 12 to 15; or, if going further, where it flows into Interstate 93, Exits 1 through 12.
Boston, like Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, is too close to fly from New York, and once you factor in fooling around with everything you gotta do at each airport, it doesn't really save you much time compared to driving, the bus or the train. It certainly won't save you any money.
The train is a very good option. Boston's South Station is at 700 Atlantic Avenue, corner of Summer Street, at Dewey Square. (Named for Admiral George Dewey, naval hero of the Spanish-American War, not New York Governor and 1944 & '48 Presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey, and not for former Red Sox right fielder Dwight "Dewey" Evans, either.) It'll be $154 round-trip from New York’s Penn Station to South Station, and it will take roughly 4½ hours. The
Acela Express (the new name for the
Metroliner, a more expensive option) will take about 3½ hours.
That pointy thing in front of it is a subway entrance.
South Station also has a bus terminal attached, and it may be the best bus station in the country – even better than New York's Port Authority. If you take Greyhound, you'll leave from Port Authority's Gate 84, and it will take about 4½ hours, most likely making one stop, at Hartford's Union Station complex, or in the Boston suburbs of Framingham, Worcester or Newton. New York to Boston and back is tremendously cheaper on the bus than on the train, usually around $114
round-trip, and it could drop to as little as $62 with advanced purchase), and is probably Greyhound's best run. On the way back, you’ll board at South Station's Gate 3.
Once In the City: Cambridge. Although their athletic facilities are on the south, Boston bank of the Charles River, Harvard University is on the north bank, in Cambridge. It was named for the University of Cambridge in England, as the founders of Harvard were Puritans, some of whom had gone to that school, founded in 1209. That city was named for a bridge over the River Cam.
One of those Cambridge graduates was John Harvard, a minister known in his time (1607-1638) as "a godly gentleman and a lover of learning." Unfortunately, he was only 31 when he died of tuberculosis. Upon his death, he left money for The New College, founded in 1636 as the 1st college in America. So he's not quite the founder of what was subsequently renamed Harvard University. He's more the benefactor, as Colonel Henry Rutgers would be of Queens College in New Jersey, 189 years later.
Radcliffe College, a women's school, was founded in Cambridge in 1889. It was integrated into Harvard in 1977, making America's oldest college co-ed at last.
The city grew around the University, with Harvard Square being the centerpoint, for town activity, though not for street addresses. It is formed by the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street (formerly Harvard Street).
Since 1912, the Square has been served by the Harvard station on the Boston subway, now part of the MBTA Red Line, and I suspect the color was chosen to match Harvard's color, crimson, which is also the name of the school newspaper (
The Harvard Crimson) and the name of its sports teams. Harvard Square is also a major bus service hub.
Harvard Station
Also is Cambridge is the Kendall station on the Red Line, mentioned in the song "M.T.A.": "Charlie handed in his dime at the Kendall Square Station... " Today, a ride costs $2.75 with cash, the same as New York's subway, and if you're there for the entire series, it may be cheaper to get a 7-day pass for $21.25. The MBTA 1-day pass is $12, so the 7-day pass is a better option.
But the Harvard Square Kiosk, in place since 1928, and home to the newspaper and magazine store known as Out of Town News since 1955, is no more. Out of Town News closed this past October 31, and the Kiosk is being renovated, expected to reopen sometime next year.
Harvard Square, including the Kiosk, with Dudley House behind it
Harvard Yard is bounded by Broadway on the north, Quincy Street on the east, Massachusetts Avenue on the south and Peabody Street on the west. There are signs stating that motorized vehicles are banned. So the phrase designed to show off the Boston accent is pointless: Legally, you cannot "Pahk yuh cah in Hahvahd Yahd."
In the Yard, in front of University Hall, is a statue of John Harvard, dedicated in 1884. His left shoe is shiny, because people rub it for good luck. In 1934, some Harvard students kidnapped Handsome Dan, the Yale Bulldog mascot, and let him loose at the statue. Sacrilege? No: They'd smeared the shoes with hamburger grease, and got a photograph of "Yale licking Harvard's boots." The dog was not otherwise harmed, and was soon returned.
Cambridge is also the location of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The city is home to 120,000 people, but it's as much "town" as "gown," and the "town" is very blue-collar, home to Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1977 to 1986; and actors Matt Damon and Ben and Casey Affleck.
The Area Code is 617, with 857 overlaid; and the ZIP Codes run from 02138 to 02142. The sales tax in Massachusetts is 6.25 percent, less than New Jersey's 7 percent and New York City's 8.875 percent. The Boston area's electric companies have been unified under a company called Eversource Energy. Cambridge was 91 percent white as recently as 1970, but is now 63 percent white, 16 percent Asian, 13 percent black and 8 percent Hispanic.
As America's oldest college, a list of Harvard's (and Radcliffe's) notable graduates would be either extensive or short-changing. Let me thus list the biggest of the big names:
* Presidents: John Adams (Class of) 1755, John Quincy Adams 1767, Rutherford B. Hayes 1845 (Law School), Theodore Roosevelt 1880, Franklin D. Roosevelt 1904, John F. Kennedy '40, George W. Bush '73 (Business School), Barack Obama '91 (Law School).
Also, Vice President Al Gore '69; President Syngman Rhee 1909 of South Korea, and President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf '71 of Liberia; and Prime Ministers Pierre Trudeau '45 of Canada, and Benazir Bhutto '73 of Pakistan.
First Lady Michelle Obama got her law degree at Harvard in '88. First Daughter Caroline Kennedy graduated in '80, and Malia Obama is on schedule to graduate in 2021. Masako Owada '85 is now Empress Masako of Japan,
* Cabinet members: Many, including Secretaries of State Edward Everett 1814, Richard Olney 1858, Dean Acheson 1918 (Law) and Mike Pompeo '94; Secretaries of Defense Robert Todd Lincoln 1864, Henry Stimson 1889, Caspar Weinberger '38, Robert McNamara '39, James Schlesinger '50; Secretaries of the Treasury Donald Regan '40 and Robert Rubin '60; Attorneys General Robert F. Kennedy 1948, Janet Reno '63, Loretta Lynch '81; Secretaries of Labor Willard Wirtz '37, Elizabeth Dole '65 (also a Senator) and Elaine Chao '79; Secretaries of Housing & Urban Development Robert C. Weaver '34, Henry Cisneros '73 and Julian Castro 2000; and Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross '61.
Castro's twin brother Joaquin Castro, currently a Congressman from Texas and a candidate for President, also graduated in 2000.
* U.S. Supreme Court: 23 Justices, including Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. 1861, Louis Brandeis 1877, Felix Frankfurter 1906, Harry Blackmun '29, William J. Brennan '31, Lewis Powell '32, William Rehnquist '50, Antonin Scalia '60, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter '61, and current Justices Stephen Breyer '64. Neil Gorsuch '67 and Elena Kagan '86. This means that, from 1990 to 2005, 4 of the 9 Justices, nearly a majority, were Harvard graduates, either undergraduate or Law School. In addition, Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox '34.
* Governors: Among others, Samuel Adams 1740 of Massachusetts, John Hancock 1754 of Massachusetts, Leverett Saltonstall 1914 of Massachusetts, Christian Herter 1915 of Massachusetts, John Davis Lodge '25 of Connecticut, Alfred E. Driscoll '28 of New Jersey, John Chafee '50 of Rhode Island, Michael Dukakis '60 of Massachusetts, Jay Rockefeller '61 of West Virginia, Bob Graham '62 of Florida, Pete du Pont '63 of Delaware, William Weld '66 of Massachusetts, Jim Doyle '72 of Wisconsin, Mitt Romney '75 of Massachusetts, Ned Lamont '76 of Connecticut, Deval Patrick '78 of Massachusetts, Phil Murphy '79 of New Jersey, Mark Warner '80 of Virginia, Bruce Rauner '81 of Illinois, Jim McGreevey '82 of New Jersey, Tim Kaine '83 of Virginia, Eliot Spitzer '84 of New York, and Jennifer Granholm '87 of Michigan.
Saltonstall, Chafee, Rockefeller, Graham, Warner and Kaine were also U.S. Senators.
* U.S. Senators: Among others, not including those previously mentioned: Rufus King 1777 of Massachusetts, Charles Sumner 1830 of Massachusetts, Henry Cabot Lodge 1871 of Massachusetts, Robert Taft 1913 of Ohio (Law), Sam Ervin of North Carolina '22, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. '24 of Massachusetts (grandson of the earlier Senator), Claude Pepper '24 of Florida, William Proxmire '40 of Wisconsin, Robert Taft Jr. '42 of Ohio (Law), Thomas Eagleton of Missouri '53, Ted Kennedy '56 of Massachusetts, Paul Sarbanes '60 of Maryland, Pat Toomey '61 of Pennsylvania, John Heinz '63 of Pennsylvania, Harrison Schmitt '64 of New Mexico (also astronaut who walked on the Moon), Richard Blumenthal '67 of Connecticut, Chuck Schumer '71 of New York, Al Franken '73 of Minnesota, Jack Reed '73 of Rhode Island, Paul Tsongas '74 of Massachusetts, Mike Crapo '77 of Idaho, Bill Frist '78 of Tennessee, Russ Feingold '79 of Wisconsin, Bob Torricelli '80 of New Jersey, David Vitter '83 of Louisiana, Martha McSally '90 of Arizona, Ben Sasse '94 of Nebraska, Ted Cruz '95 of Texas, and Tom Cotton '98 of Arkansas.
* Others: Declaration of Independence signer Robert Treat Paine 1749, civil rights icon W.E.B. Du Bois 1890, State Department official and accused spy Alger Hiss '29, conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly '45, Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker '51, Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg '52, Mayor Kevin White '57 of Boston, Presidential speechwriter Richard Goodwin '58 and his wife historian Doris Kearns Goodwin '68, consumer advocate and 2000 3rd party Presidential candidate Ralph Nader '58, Mayor Michael Bloomberg '66 of New York, Presidential advisor David Gergen '67, physician and 3rd party Presidential candidate Jill Stein '73, conservative economic guru Grover Norquist '78, and Mayor Eric Johnson '98 of Dallas.
* Science: Psychologist William James 1869, sex researcher Alfred Kinsey 1919, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer '25, astronomer Neil de Grasse Tyson '80. Alas, also "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski '62.
* Business: Banker David Rockefeller '36, Levi Strauss CEO and former Oakland Athletics owner Walter Haas '39, Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone '44, New York Daily News owner Mortimer Zuckerman '62, Microsoft CEO and Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer '77, Enron fraudster Jeffrey Skilling '79, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon '82.
* Journalism: Ben Bradlee '44, George Plimpton '48, Lou Dobbs '67, Thomas Oliphant '67, James Fallows '70, Frank Rich '71, Michael Kinsley '72, E.J. Dionne '73, Evan Thomas '73, William Kristol '73, Walter Isaacson '74, Jill Abramson '76, Jim Cramer '77, Jonathan Alter '79, Nicholas Kristof '81, Andrew Sullivan '86, Soledad O'Brien '87, Suzanne Malveaux '87, Joy-Ann Reid '90. If you count sports journalism: James Brown '73, Pablo S. Torre 2007.
* Literature: Ralph Waldo Emerson 1821, Oliver Wendell Holmes 1836 (grandfather of the Justice), Henry David Thoreau 1837, James Russell Lowell 1838, Horatio Alger 1852, Ernest Thayer 1885 (wrote "Casey At the Bat"), George Santayana 1886, Gertrude Stein 1897, Helen Keller 1904, Robert Benchley 1912, E.E. Cummings 1915, John Dos Passos 1916, Thomas Wolfe '22, William S. Burroughs '36, Norman Mailer '43, Richard Wilbur '47, Edward Gorey '50, Robert Bly '50, Donald Hall '51, Ursula K. Le Guin '51, John Updike '54, Susan Sontag '57, Erich Segal '58, Peter Benchley '61 (Robert's grandson), Margaret Atwood '62, Michael Crichton '64, Scott Turow '78, Elizabeth Wurtzel '89.
* Actors: Jack Lemmon '47, Fred Gwynne '51, Wallace Shawn '65, Stockard Channing '65, John Lithgow '67, Tommy Lee Jones '69 (also a football player and roommate of Al Gore), Fred Grandy '70, Courtney B. Vance '82, Amy Brenneman '87, Donal Logue '89, Mira Sorvino '90, Nestor Carbonell '90, Matt Damon '92, Rashida Jones '97, Elisabeth Shue 2000, Natalie Portman '03, Jonathan Taylor Thomas '04, Scottie Thompson '05.
* Comedians: Andy Borowitz '80, Conan O'Brien '85, Greg Giraldo '88, Mo Rocca '91.
* Directors: Terrence Malick '66, James Toback '66, Edward Zwick '74, Jeff Zucker '86, Darren Aronofsky '91.
* Music: Composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein '39, musical satirist Tom Lehrer '47, Talking Heads keyboardist Jerry Harrison '71, cellist Yo-Yo Ma '76, Rage Against the Machine leader Tom Morello '86, jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman '91, Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo '06.
* Architecture: Charles Bulfinch 1781, Philip Johnson '30, I.M. Pei '46.
You were wondering when I was going to get around to sports? Non-football athletes from Harvard include: Early tennis star Richard Sears 1883, baseball player and war hero Eddie Grant 1905, figure skater Dick Button '52, soccer goalie Shep Messing '73, rowing Olympic Gold Medalist Esther Lofgren '09, basketball player Jeremy Lin '10. Also, hockey general managers Robert Ridder '40 and Brian Burke '81, and Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred '83. If you count golf as a sport (I don't), Bobby Jones '24.
Once In the City: New Haven. Settled in 1638, and named as a "haven" for Puritans fleeing England, "the Elm City" is now home to about 130,000 people, making it about the same size as Cambridge.
The city and the school are both centered on the New Haven Green, bordered by Elm Street on the north, Church Street on the east, Chapel Street on the south and College Street on the west. The Green is 77 miles northeast of Midtown Manhattan, and 137 miles southwest of Downtown Crossing in Boston. This makes the city a convenient "neutral zone" for fans of New York teams and Boston teams alike.
New Haven faced some serious "white flight" after the 1960s: With a white population of 70 percent in 1970, it's now about 35 percent black, 32 percent white, 28 percent Hispanic and 5 percent Asian. The Area Code is 203, with 475 overlaid; and the ZIP Codes run from 06501 to 06540. The sales tax in Connecticut is 6.35 percent. Oddly, New Haven's electricity is run by Pennsylvania Power and Light -- Pennsylvania and Connecticut don't even border each other.
Connecticut Transit runs New Haven's buses, and when you board, you can press a button to get an All-Day Pass for just $3.50. New Haven's Union Station is served by Amtrak, Metro-North, the Hartford Line (connecting to Springfield, Massachusetts), the Shore Line East (connecting as far east as Old Saybrook), Greyhound, Megabus and Connecticut Transit buses.
The Collegiate School was founded in 1701 in Branford, Connecticut -- and the school's current people won't want to admit this, but it was by Harvard-educated ministers. It moved around a bit until it was set in New Haven in 1716, and stayed there.
As with John Harvard of Cambridge University (and Henry Rutgers of Columbia), it was a man from another school who became its benefactor and namesake, Boston businessman and Harvard graduate Elihu Yale (1649-1721). An official in the East India Company, "Eli" Yale made his contribution, and the school was named for him in 1718. The students and graduates have since been called "Men of Old Eli," and the teams were called the Elis before "Bulldogs" was adopted.
He has no statue on campus, and no shiny shoe.
Harvard's motto is simply Veritas, Latin for "Truth." Yale's is Lux et Veritas, "Light and Truth." One-upmanship? They've been trying to one-up each other for 300 years. They have more in common than they'd like to admit, but they like to think they're opposites, with Yale even using blue as a color rather than red. Yale's school newspaper is The Yale Daily News, or "The Daily Yalie."
As with Harvard, any list of notable Yale alumni would be exhaustive, and includes some who also got degrees at Harvard, but here goes:
* Presidents: William Howard Taft 1878, Gerald Ford '41 (Law), George H.W. Bush '48, George W. Bush '68, Bill Clinton '73 (Law).
* Vice Presidents: In addition to Ford and the elder Bush, John C. Calhoun 1804, Dick Cheney '63.
* Supreme Court: 18 Justices, including Chief Justice Taft, Potter Stewart '37, Byron White '46, and current Justices Clarence Thomas '74, Samuel Alito '75, Sonia Sotomayor '79 and Brett Kavanaugh '90.
* Cabinet members: Secretaries of State Henry Stimson 1888, Dean Acheson 1915, Cyrus Vance '39, John Kerry '66 and Hillary Clinton '73 (Law); Secretary of Defense Les Aspin '60; Secretaries of the Treasury Robert Rubin '64 and Steve Mnuchin '85; Attorneys General Alphonso Taft 1833 (founder of the family's political dynasty) and Edwin Meese '53; and Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross '59. Kerry and Clinton were also U.S. Senators.
Also, abolitionist and later Ambassador Cassius Clay 1832 (namesake of the man who became Muhammad Ali), "Chicago Eight" defendant David Dellinger '36 (he titled his memoir From Yale to Jail), original Peace Corps Director and Kennedy in-law Sargent Shriver '38, notable Deputy Attorney General Burke Marshall '43, New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. '78, "hippie lawyer" William Kunstler '41, and notorious Bush Administration official Lewis "Scooter" Libby '72.
* Governors: In addition to those previously mentioned, William Livingston 1741 of New Jersey (1st Governor), Samuel Tilden 1837 of New York, Averell Harriman 1913 of New York, William Scranton '39 of Pennsylvania, John Chafee '47, of Rhode Island, Lowell Weicker '53 of Connecticut, Robert Taft '53 of Ohio (son of Robert Jr. and great-grandson of William Howard), Pete Wilson '56 of California, Jerry Brown '64 of California (Law), George Pataki '67 of New York, Mark Dayton '69 of Minnesota, Jack Dalrymple '70 of North Dakota. Howard Dean '71 of Vermont, Gary Locke '72 of Washington. Chafee, Weicker and Wilson were also U.S. Senators. Also Mayor John Lindsay '44 of New York.
* U.S. Senators: Among them, in addition to those already mentioned, Robert Taft 1910 of Ohio, Prescott Bush 1917 of Connecticut (George H.W.'s father), Stuart Symington '23 of Missouri, Robert Taft Jr. '39 of Ohio, William Proxmire '48 of Wisconsin, Arlen Specter '56 of Pennsylvania (Law), John Heinz '60 of Pennsylvania, Gary Hart '61 of Colorado, Joe Lieberman '64 of Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal '73 of Connecticut (Law), Sherrod Brown '74 of Ohio, Sheldon Whitehouse '78, of Rhode Island, Amy Klobuchar '82 of Minnesota, Cory Booker '97 of New Jersey (Law).
* Members of Congress: Among them, Gerry Studds '59 of Massachusetts, the 1st openly gay Congressman; Eleanor Holmes Norton '63, longtime nonvoting delegate from the District of Columbia; and Sheila Jackson Lee '72 of Texas.
* Political commentators: William F. Buckley '50 and his son Christopher Buckley '75, Alan Dershowitz '62, David Gergen '63, Marvin Olasky '71, Fareed Zakaria '86.
Also, Revolutionary patriot spy Nathan Hale 1773; the founder of Cleveland, Ohio, Moses Cleaveland 1777; and New York building czar Robert Moses 1909.
* Journalism: Ogden Mills Reid 1904 and his son Whitelaw Reid '34, Gordon McLendon '42, Tom Wolfe '57, John Lahr '63, Margaret Warner '71, Jane Mayer '77, Stone Phillips '77, Naomi Wolf '84, Adam Liptak '84, David Leonhart '94.
* Business: Publisher Henry Holt 1862, aircraft pioneers William Boeing 1903 and Juan Trippe '21, newspaper publishers Joseph Medill Patterson 1901 (founder of the New York Daily News) and his cousin "Colonel" Robert McCormick 1903 (of the Chicago Tribune), Time magazine founders Henry Luce 1920 and Britton Hadden 1920, venture capital inventor and New York Herald Tribune
publisher John Hay "Jock" Whitney '26, automaker Henry Ford II '40, Federal Express founder Frederick W Smith '66.
* Science: Cotton gin inventor Eli Whitney 1792, painter and telegraph inventor Samuel Morse 1810, child psychologist Benjamin Spock '25, computer pioneer Grace Hopper '30, and neurosurgeons Harvey Williams Cushing 1891 and Ben Carson '73.
* Social Science: Reinhold Niebuhr 1914, Brendan Gill '36, Camille Paglia '72, Henry Louis Gates Jr. '73.
* Architecture: Eero Saarinen '34, Robert Stern '65, and Maya Lin '81.
* Art: Painters Mark Rothko '24, Chuck Close '64; cartoonist Garry Trudeau '70.
* Acting: Vincent Price '33, James Whitmore '42, Anne Meacham '47, Paul Newman '54, Sam Waterston '61, Henry Winkler '70, Ben Stein '70, Michael Gross '73, Sigourney Weaver '74, Harry Hamlin '74, Meryl Streep '75, Robert Picardo '75, Angela Bassett '80, Tony Shalhoub '80, Bronson Pinchot '81, David Hyde Pierce '81, David Alan Grier '81, Frances McDormand '82, Victoria Clark '82, John Turturro '83, Jodie Foster '85, Chris Noth '85, Enrico Colantoni '85, Jennifer Beals '87, Paul Giamatti '89 (son of former Yale President and Baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti), David Duchovny '89, Ron Livingston '89, Phil LaMarr '89, Edward Norton '91, Bellamy Young '91, Jennifer Connelly '92, Liev Schreiber '92, Noah Emmerich '92, Sara Gilbert '97, Josh Saviano '98, Kellie Martin '01, Claire Danes '02, Jordana Brewster '03 (granddaughter of former Yale President Kingman Brewster), Allison Williams '10, Lupita Nyong'o '12, Winston Duke '13.
Also, directors George Roy Hill '43, Michael Cimino '61, James Burrows '62, Oliver Stone '68, Lloyd Kaufman '68, Thomas F. Lennon '73, Alex Gibney '74, Todd Solondz '81 and Jessica Yu '87; producer Dick Ebersol '70; film critic Gene Siskel '67; and chef Ming Tsai '86.
* Comedy: Dick Cavett '58, Lewis Black '77, John Hodgman '92.
* Literature: Noah Webster 1778, James Fenimore Cooper 1805, John Knowles '49, Harold Bloom '56, Larry Kramer '57.
* Music: Composers Charles Ives 1898, Cole Porter 1913, Mich Leigh '51, Maury Yeston '67, Michael Gore '73, Robert Lopez '97; jazz singer Rudy Vallee '72, Fugees singer Pras Michel '94, Pentatonix singer Kevin Olusola '11.
* Athletes, other than football: Yankee 1936 World Series pitcher Johnny Broaca, Met 1986 World Series pitcher Ron Darling, curse-breaking Red Sox and Cubs general manager Theo Epstein, former Knick coach Jeff Van Gundy, former Nets player Chris Dudley, Olympic Gold Medal-winning swimmer Don Schollander, Olympic Gold Medal-winning marathoner Frank Shorter, Olympic Gold Medal-winning figure skater Sarah Hughes; and the 1st notable openly transgender athlete, tennis player Richard Raskind, a.k.a. Renee Richards, who, yes, had to field some "mixed singles" lines.
Going In. Harvard Stadium is the oldest continuously-used college football stadium, having opened on November 14, 1903. Alas, they did not win their opener, losing 11-0 to Dartmouth. It's 116 years old. That makes it 9 years older than Fenway Park in Boston; 10 years older than the oldest stadium in major college football, Georgia Tech's Grant Field in Atlanta; and 11 years older than both the Yale Bowl and Wrigley Field in Chicago. In spite of that age, it is in very good shape. I suppose having America's wealthiest alumni base helps.
The address is 79 N. Harvard Street,about 4 miles west of Downtown Crossing, in the Allston neighborhood of Boston. If you drive in, parking is $20. The University recommends parking by Gate 8, 14, 16 or 20 if you want to tailgate.
Public transportation is a little tricky. You could take the Red Line to Central, in Cambridge, and transfer to Bus 70. Or, you could take the Red Line to Harvard, and walk across the Harvard Bridge over the river, and get there in about 15 minutes. Or, you could take the Green Line B Train to Harvard Avenue, and transfer to Bus 66.
Previously, Harvard played at Jarvis Field, where the Littauer Center of Public Administration now stands. 1805 Cambridge Street, across from the northwestern corner of Harvard Yard, across from Cambridge Common.
Jarvis Field, 1890
When it opened, Harvard Stadium seated 42,000. In 1906, as part of a study on game safety demanded by President Theodore Roosevelt, himself a Harvard graduate, Yale coach Walter Camp recommended widening the field. But with its new stadium, Harvard said they couldn't. In those days, what Harvard wanted, it usually got. So other measures were taken, including hashmarks and the legalization of the forward pass.
By 1929, Harvard Stadium was a bowl seating 57,166. But by 1952, a stadium that big was hardly ever needed, except against Yale. So the north stand was torn down, leaving the stadium in the horseshoe shape it retains today, with a capacity of 30,323.
The field runs southwest-to-northeast. From 1872 to 2005, Harvard played home games on real grass. Since 2006, they have used FieldTurf. That was also the year they finally installed permanent lights.
The Boston Patriots used Harvard Stadium in 1970, their 1st year in the NFL after the merger with the AFL, and their last year before moving out to the suburb of Foxborough and changing their name to the New England Patriots. The Boston Breakers of the USFL didn't use it (they used Nickerson Field at Boston University), but the team of the same name in the National Women's Soccer League used it from 2009 to 2014, before folding.
Olympic Trials for track and field were held there in the 1920s. The stadium hosted 6 soccer games of the 1984 Olympics, even though the Games were held all the way across the country in Los Angeles. It's held concerts, including what turned out to be Janis Joplin's last on August 12, 1970, and Bob Marley in 1979. The Boston Bruins are working with the University and the NHL to have the 2024 Winter Classic played there, to celebrate their 100th Anniversary.
A short walk down Soldiers Field Road, at 65 N. Harvard Street, is Jordan Field, the 4,000-seat home of the Harvard men's and women's soccer teams. It was also the home of the Boston Breakers -- not a descendant of the USFL team, but the local XI in the National Women's Soccer League. The Breakers previously (2009-11) played at Harvard Stadium. They announced they were folding in 2018.
The Yale Bowl opened on November 21, 1914, and Harvard spoiled the party, winning 36-0. (They were 7-0-2, while Yale finished 7-2. A week before, Yale had spoiled the opening of Princeton's Palmer Stadium, 19-14.) It was the 1st football stadium to be named a "bowl," because of its shape.
The address is 81 Central Avenue, 2 miles west of the Green. Bus 255 leaves from Chapel & Temple Streets, at the southeast corner of the Green, and drops you off at Derby & Yale Avenues, southeast of the stadium, 13 minutes later. If you drive in, parking is $20, the same as at Harvard. Not only is tailgating encouraged, but, supposedly, it was Yale football fans who invented the tailgate party in the first place.
The bowl held 70,896 fans, but it has rarely been filled from the 1970s onward. A badly-needed renovation in 1994 reduced capacity to 64,246. Another renovation in 2006 dropped it to the current 61,446, still more than is necessary for any opponent except Harvard. The playing surface, known as Class of 1954 Field, runs northwest-to-southeast. From 1872 to 2018, Yale played all their home games on God's own grass. This year, they switched to FieldTurf.
The Yale Bowl hosted the 1st-ever game between the New York Giants and Jets, a preseason exhibition on August 17, 1969 -- the Saturday of Woodstock. The Giants and their fans had talked about how, in spite of the Jets' recent Super Bowl win, they weren't the best team in New York, let alone the world. The Jets proved them very wrong, 37-14.
When the original Yankee Stadium was closed for renovations in October 1973, the Giants were out of luck: They had announced their intention to move to the Meadowlands of New Jersey for 1976, but Mayor John Lindsay wouldn't let them use City-owned Shea Stadium in the interim. So, for their last 5 1973 home games, and for all 7 in 1974, the Giants headed up I-95 and used the Yale Bowl, winning just 1 of 12 games (over the St. Louis Cardinals in 1973). New Mayor Abe Beame let them use Shea in 1975.
The Yale Bowl was also the home of the Connecticut Bicentennials of the old North American Soccer League in the 1976 and '77 seasons. It's hosted 4 international matches: Brazil 4-1 Italy on May 31, 1976; Italy 0-0 Portugal on June 6, 1993; USA 0-2 Brazil on June 6, 1993; and USA 1-1 Greece on May 28, 1994. Despite also being a good hockey school, Yale has never hosted an outdoor hockey game at the Yale Bowl.
Nobody’s gone to Yale for the football since Walter Camp was coaching there, but it makes the Yale Bowl no less impressive. It’s historic, the sight lines are surprisingly good, and the campus is spectacular. Plus, it was a pioneer in how big-time football stadiums would be constructed in the years to to come.
To the south, across Derby Avenue, is Yale Field. Baseball has been played at the site since 1885, and in the current 6,200-seat stadium since 1928. It also hosted the New Haven Ravens of the Class AA Eastern League from 1994 to 2003, and the New Haven County Cutters of the Can-Am League from 2004 to 2007.
Food. Honestly, in both Cambridge and New Haven, you're better off eating before and after the game. Harvard does not have a stadium concession map on their website, only mentioning that "Several concessions stands which offer a variety of food and drink options are available." Yale's website doesn't even say that much, although there are concessions stands.
Team History Displays. There is no display in the fan-viewable areas of either stadium for titles, which is probably just as well, given how long ago their big achievements were. Nor does either school retire numbers.
Harvard has won 12 National Championships, but all of them were retroactively awarded before the 1st Associated Press poll in 1936: 1874, 1875, 1890, 1898, 1899, 1901, 1908, 1910, 1912, 1913, 1919 and 1920.
The term "Ivy League" had been in use since 1934, but it wasn't until 1956 that a formal league -- encompassing Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown and Cornell -- began awarding sports championships. Harvard has won or shared it 17 times: 1961, 1966, 1968, 1974, 1975, 1982, 1983, 1987, 1997, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2011, 2013, 2014 and 2015. (Dartmouth is going to win it this season.)
There are 18 Harvard players, and 3 coaches, in the College Football Hall of Fame, and all but 1 of those played before World War II:
* From the 1890s: Center William H. Lewis, tackle Marshall Newell, fullbacks Charley Brewer and Bill Reid. Lewis (1868-1949), playing from 1888 to 1893 while he was at Harvard Law School (the NCAA didn't have a rule against that at the time, because there was no NCAA at the time), had previously played across Massachusetts at Amherst College, where he became the 1st black American football player. He later served as an Assistant Attorney General under President Taft.
* From the 1900s: Quarterback Charles Daly, end Dave Campbell and tackle Hamilton Fish III.
* From the 1910s: Coach Percy Haughton, guard Bob Fisher, halfback Percy Wendell, end Huntington Hardwick, guard Stan Pennock, and fullbacks Eddie Mahan and Eddie Casey.
* From the 1920s: Halfback George Owen.
* From the 1930s: Coach Dick Harlow, center Ben Ticknor, quarterback Barry Wood.
* From the 1940s: Harlow, guard Endicott Peabody.
* From the 1950s: Coach Lloyd Jordan.
* Since the 1950s: Receiver and punter Pat McNinally, 1972-74, later to play on the Cincinnati Bengals' 1981 AFC Champions.
In addition to McInally, Harvard players in the NFL include guard Earl Evans of the 1925 NFL Champion Chicago Cardinals, cornerback John Dockery of the Super Bowl III-winning Jets, guard Joe Pellegrini of the nearly AFC Champion 1982 Jets, and Matt Birk of the Super Bowl XLVII-winning Baltimore Ravens. There are 8 current Harvardians in the NFL: Quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick of the Miami Dolphins; running back Kyle Juszczyk of the San Francisco 49ers, centers Tyler Ott of the Seattle Seahawks, Nick Easton of the Minnesota Vikings and Adam Redmond of the Dallas Cowboys; defensive tackle Desmond Bryant of the Cleveland Browns, and tight ends Cameron Brate of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Anthony Firkser of the Jets.
Harvard also invented American football. What's that, you say? Rutgers and Princeton played the 1st game in 1869? Officially, yes. But that was a soccer game, albeit 25-a-side. Harvard turned it into football as we know it.
In 1874, the football team at McGill University in Montreal challenged Harvard to a "football" game. Seeing themselves as sporting gentlemen, the Harvard team accepted. But when the McGill men got to Cambridge, they realized there was a misunderstanding. They thought they were going to be playing what's now called rugby union, while the Harvard men thought they were going to be playing association football, or soccer.
Seeing themselves as sporting gentlemen, the captains of each side agreed to play a game under each side's rules. On May 14, 1874, under "Boston rules," Harvard won, 3-0. The next day, under "McGill rules," they played to a 0-0 tie.
The Harvard men decided they liked the McGill rules, even though they hadn't won. Later in the year, they went to Montreal to play McGill under home rules again, and won. And they got the captains of the other football-playing schools in America together, and all agreed to play by the new rules, and American football was born.
Yale, of course, was one of those schools. Yale has won more National Championships than any other college football team, 27 -- but, like Harvard, all of theirs were retroactively awarded before the 1st Associated Press poll in 1936: 1872, 1874, 1876, 1877, 1879, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1886, 1887, 1888, 1891, 1892, 1893, 1894, 1895, 1897, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1909 and 1927. Indeed, from 1879 to 1884, 6 seasons, Yale went 37-0-5. And from 1891 to 1895, 5 seasons, they went 65-1-2.
Yale has won or shared 15 Ivy League titles: 1956, 1960, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1989, 1999, 2006 and 2017. In 1960, they shared the Lambert Trophy, given to "the best college football team in the East," with the Naval Academy.
Yale has had 28 figures in the College Football Hall of Fame. As with Harvard, only 1 has played for them since World War II:
* From the 1880s: Coach Walter Camp, end Amos Alonzo Stagg (later one of the great coaches, but not at Yale), guard Walter "Pudge" Heffelfinger (who became the 1st man openly paid to play football, in 1892), and halfback Lee McClung.
Pudge Heffelfinger
* From the 1890s: Camp, end Frank Hinkey, halfback Sam Thorne and guard Gordon Brown.
* From the 1900s: Tackle James Hogan, end Tom Shevlin, fullback Ted Coy and end John Kilpatrick (who later ran Madison Square Garden, and is thus in the Hockey Hall of Fame). Howard Jones, later to be the founder of the USC football dynasty, coached Yale in the 1909 and 1913 seasons.
* From the 1910s: Coach Thomas "Tad" Jones, quarterback Art Howe (not related to the later Mets manager), end Doug Bomeisler and center Hank Ketcham (not related to the later
Dennis the Menace cartoonist).
* From the 1920s: Coach Tad Jones, halfback Mal Stevens, tackle Century Milstead, fullback Bill Mallory (not related to the later Indiana coach, who was once an assistant at Yale) and guard Herbert Sturhahn.
* From the 1930s: Halfback Albie Booth, end Larry Kelley and halfback Clint Frank. Kelley won the Heisman Trophy in 1936, Frank in 1937.
* Since the 1930s: 1965-96 head coach Carmen Cozza and early 1970s running back Dick Jauron (later head coach of the Chicago Bears).
Not in the College Hall, but with notable pro careers are: Tackle Century Milstead, of the 1927 NFL Champion Giants; tackle John Prchlik, of the 1952 and '53 NFL Champion Detroit Lions; center Mike Pyle, of the 1963 NFL Champion Bears; running back Chuck Mercein, of the Super Bowl II-winning Green Bay Packers, having played for the Giants before that and the Jets afterward; running back Calvin Hill, of the Super Bowl VI-winning Dallas Cowboys, and father of Basketball Hall-of-Famer Grant Hill; tight end John Spagnola, of the 1980 NFC Champion Philadelphia Eagles; and safety Gary Fencik, of the Super Bowl XX-winning Bears. There is 1 current NFL player who went to Yale, Atlanta Falcons linebacker Foyesade Oluokun.
Probably the most famous Yale football player of all was Brian Dowling, a quarterback from Cleveland, who led Yale to a share of the 1968 Ivy League title. (More about that shortly.) That year, the
Yale Daily News published a comic strip titled
Bull Tales, whose lead character was "B.D.," a parody of Dowling.
In 1970, the strip's writer, Garry Trudeau, got to nationally syndicate the strip, which he renamed for another character,
Doonesbury. Over the years, B.D. was shown as the quarterback and later the head coach for fictional Walden College, a backup quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams, a California Highway Patrol officer (a "CHiP"), and a soldier who loses a leg in Iraq. The character remains in the strip today, still more conservative than most of the main characters.
The real Dowling played for the Patriots from 1970 to 1973, the World Football League version of the Charlotte Hornets in 1974 and '75, and the Packes in 1977, before becoming a stockbroker and a venture capitalist, which you would tend to expect from a Yalie.
1968 Yale players Bruce Weinstein,
Calvin Hill, Kyle Gee and Brian Dowling
Walter Camp -- halfback 1876-1881, head coach 1888-1892, and writer about the game from then until his death in 1925 -- is known as "The Father of American Football." He invented the center snap, the seven-linemen-and-four-back system, the four-down system, and the current scoring system including the invention of the safety. He also named the 1st All-America Team, starting a tradition that continues to this day.
As for the rivalry: They first played each other on November 13, 1875, at Hamilton Park in New Haven. Harvard scored 4 goals and 2 "tries," which rugby still uses, but American football would later call a "touchdown," since a "try" was generally scored by touching the ball down inside the end zone. Under today's scoring system, this would have given Harvard a 26-0 victory.
Yale learned quickly, and won 10 games and tied 2 more before Harvard beat them again, in 1890. Through 1907, it was Yale 21, Harvard 4, with 3 ties. And they were rough: After same nasty injuries in Yale's 12-4 win in 1894, the series was suspended for 2 years.
Then, in 1908, new Harvard coach Percy Haughton allegedly strangled a live bulldog and threw its dead body on the locker room floor, in front of his players, to show them how much they should hate Yale. It worked, as Harvard won, 4-0. The legend is probably an exaggeration: A 2011 Los Angeles Times story suggested it was a papier-mache bulldog.
Harvard went on to dominate the rivalry, going 8-1 from 1912 to 1922. (Both teams suspended their programs for 1917 and '18, due to World War I.)
In both 1883 and 1887, the game was played on Thanksgiving Day, and high school football on that day, in retreat in so many places (including, to my regret, New Jersey), remains a big deal in New England.
From 1889 to 1894, it was played on neutral ground at Hampden Park in Springfield, Massachusetts. It's been played at Major League Baseball parks: In 1878 and 1880 at South End Grounds, home of the Boston Beaneaters (the team now known as the Atlanta Braves); those Thanksgiving games of 1883 and 1887, both on neutral ground at the original Polo Grounds in New York; and in 2018 at Fenway Park, as a Harvard home game.
John F. Kennedy was not good enough to make any sports team at Harvard. His brother, Robert F. Kennedy, was too small to start on the Harvard football team, but in the 1947 season opener, he scored a touchdown in a 52-0 win over Western Maryland (now McDaniel College, an NCAA Division III school). In the next-to-last game, he broke his leg in a win over Brown. Since the only way you could win your varsity letter at the time was to play in the Yale game, Bobby Kennedy played in the Harvard-Yale game with a broken leg. And in the 1955 game, the youngest brother, Ted Kennedy, scored a touchdown for Harvard against Yale.
What the Kennedy myth-makers don't tell you is that Bobby had "only" a sprained ankle; that Yale won both the 1947 game (31-21) and the 1955 game (21-7); and that, earlier in the 1955 game, before his touchdown, Ted dropped a pass in the end zone. However, Ted was considered good enough at the position we now call tight end that the Green Bay Packers were interested in him. Old Joe Kennedy said no, Ted was going to go to law school, which he did -- not at Harvard, but at the University of Virginia. The Game was pushed back a week in 1963, after JFK was assassinated.
Ted Kennedy poses at Harvard Stadium.
Bobby wore Number 86.
The most famous game in the series came on November 23, 1968, when both teams walked into Harvard Stadium undefeated. (They hadn't both been undefeated going into The Game since 1909, and haven't since.) The winner would win the Ivy League title.
This game was played against the backdrop of a bad year, with the Vietnam War raging, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinated, the riot at the Democratic Convention, Richard Nixon being elected President 18 days earlier, the civil rights demonstration at the Olympics the previous month, and demonstrations of all kinds on both schools' campuses.
And both teams were far bigger than they are now. This was before the New England/Hartford Whalers were founded, and before UConn basketball (men's or women's) meant much, so Yale football was the biggest sports team in Connecticut. And with the Patriots still in the AFL, and Boston College in something of a down period, Harvard was the biggest football team in Massachusetts -- briefly surpassing the ethnicity-and-religion-aided fandom of faraway Notre Dame. The Crimson were nicknamed the Boston Stranglers, after the city's recent serial killer (allegedly, Albert DeSalvo).
Yale jumped out to a 22-0 lead, and led 29-13 going into the last minute. But with 42 seconds left, Harvard scored a touchdown and a 2-point conversion to make it 29-21. They recovered the onside kick, and on the last play of regulation, quarterback Frank Champi threw a touchdown pass to Vic Gatto.
Fans stormed the field, but had to be cleared off. It was 29-27 Yale, but the game wasn't over. Harvard went for 2 again, and Champi threw to Pete Varney to end the game in a tie. (Varney went on to play pro ball -- not football, but baseball, as a catcher, for 4 seasons with the Chicago White Sox and 1 with the Atlanta Braves.)
Varney's 2-pointer
The writers of The Harvard Crimson were moved to print what has become the most famous headline in the history of college newspapers.
MIT doesn't have a football team, but they've made their presence felt in this game. In 1982, they managed to release a balloon with "MIT" written all over it at midfield. Harvard won 45-7. In 1990, MIT launched a fireworks-shooting rocket from midfield. Yale won 34-19.
(Not to be outdone, MIT's West Coast archrivals, the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, hacked the scoreboard at the 1984 Rose Bowl, replacing "UCLA" and "Illinois" so that it looked like CALTECH 45, MIT 9. And a lot more people saw that prank, as live national TV beats ESPN highlights.)
In 2004, 80 years after the "Yale licks Harvard's boots" prank, Yale thought they had finally gotten even, by rearranging Harvard's "card trick." But the message turned out to be a lie, as Harvard won 35-3.
Along with Army-Navy, The Game is the biggest game among football teams not in the 5 major conferences (the Big 10, the Big 12, the Pac-12, the SEC and the ACC). In 2014, ESPN hosted College GameDay from Harvard Stadium. Harvard has dominated in recent years, winning 10 of the last 12. But Yale still leads overall, winning 67 games to Harvard's 60, with 8 ties. This Saturday's game will be the 136th edition.
(UPDATE: Through the 2019 season, Yale leads 68-60-8.)
Stuff. Forget the souvenir stands at the stadiums. If you want souvenirs, you're better off going to the school bookstores, the Harvard Coop (co-op, but pronounced like "chicken coop") off Harvard Square at 1400 Massachusetts Avenue, and the Yale Bookstore at 77 Broadway. Both are now affiliated with Barnes & Noble, as college bookstores now tend to be.
As George Will (an Ivy Leaguer, due to his master's and Ph.D. from Princeton) put it, New England is "the literary capital of America." But while the Red Sox, as he put it, "get written about to death," and there are some good books written about the other Boston teams, neither Harvard football nor Yale football seems to have been much of a literary subject.
In 2018, Dick Friedman published The Coach Who Strangled the Bulldog: How Harvard's Percy Haughton Beat Yale and Reinvented Football. In 1999, the man then coaching Yale released the memoir True Blue: The Carm Cozza Story. In 2014, Rich Marazzi published A Bowl Full of Memories: 100 Years of Football at the Yale Bowl. Later this year, his book Yale Football Through the Years will be published.
In 2008, Stephen Fritzer published A View of The Game: Yale-Harvard Football Moments. (You can tell he's a Yale man, because Yale is listed first.) There are 2 good books about the 1968 game. For the 40th Anniversary, Kevin Rafferty published Harvard Beats Yale 29-29, and made a documentary film about it as well, interviewing most of the surviving players, including Tommy Lee Jones. And for the 50th Anniversary, George Howe Colt published The Game: Harvard, Yale, and America in 1968.
During the Game. This is the Ivy League. Boston, Cambridge and New Haven may be tough cities, but no one is going to take a swing at you if you root for the visiting team.
Eighty minutes before kickoff of a Yale home game, the entire team gathers under the Walter Camp Memorial to start "The Bulldog Walk." Led by the captain and the head coach, the players lock arms while following the Yale Precision Marching Band on the 1,000-foot march into the Bowl. Fans, students, parents and alumni line both sides of the path to cheer them on.
The night before the game, the Glee Clubs of each schools have a joint concert. Among the songs they sing is "Ten Thousand Men of Harvard." New players are required to memorize it in both English and Latin. Here's the English chorus:
Ten Thousand Men of Harvard want victory today
For they know that ov'r old Eli fair Harvard holds sway.
So then we'll conquer all old Eli's men,
And when the game ends we'll sing again:
Ten thousand men of Harvard gained vict'ry today.
Yale's official fight song is "Bull Dog" by alumnus Cole Porter:
Bulldog! Bulldog! Bow, wow, wow, Eli Yale
Bulldog! Bulldog! Bow, wow, wow, Our team can never fail
When the sons of Eli break through the line
That is the sign we hail
Bulldog! Bulldog! Bow, wow, wow
Eli Yale!
"Down the Field" is played after every score and every win, mocking the Harvard version of the Boston accent:
March, march on down the field
Fighting for Eli
Break through that crimson line
Their strength to defy
We’ll give a long cheer for Eli’s men
We’re here to win again
Hahvahd’s team may fight to the end
But YALE! WILL! WIN!
But the best-known Yale song defies Ivy erudition. It is titled "Boola Boola":
Boola boola, boola boola
Boola boola, boola boola
When we rough house poor old Hahvahd
They will holler, “Boola boo”
Oh Yale, Eli Yale! Oh Yale, Eli Yale!
Oh Yale, Eli Yale! Oh Yale, Eli Yale!
How do you make a mascot out of a color? In Harvard's case, crimson red? They have a guy in a foam suit, looking like a Pilgrim, allegedly John Harvard.
He doesn't look capable of carving a Thanksgiving turkey,
let alone taming Yale's Bulldog.
In 1889, Yale adopted a live bulldog mascot, Handsome Dan. That dog stayed with them through the 1897, when he was retired. There wouldn't be a Handsome Dan II until 1933, but they've had a succession of them since.
But unfortunate circumstances have abounded. As I said earlier, Handsome Dan II was dognapped in 1934, and made to "lick Harvard's boots." Handsome Dan III was retired in 1938, due to a fear of crowds. In 1952, the same thing was done, for the same reason, with Handsome Dan VIII. Handsome Dan IV was hit by a car and paralyzed in 1940.
Handsome Dan VI died in 1949, only 2 years old. Why? Depends on who you ask. Some said he was literally scared to death by a fireworks display during The Game. Some said he died of shame, because Yale lost to both Harvard and Princeton that year.
Handsome Dan VII was retired in 1952, due to a bad temper. In 1996, Handsome Dan XIV died of a heart attack in midseason, and Handsome Dan XIII, the longest-serving mascot, came out of retirement to finish the season, his 13th. In 2005, Handsome Dan XVI was dognapped by Harvard, but there was no replay of the boot-licking.
In 1956, Handsome Dan IX became the 1st college mascot to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated -- not a surprise, given that the magazine's founder, Time, Inc. boss Henry Luce, was a Yale grad. In 1975, a bulldog named Bingo became the 1st female Yale mascot, Handsome Dan XII. (Turnabout is fair play: Lassie has always been played by a male collie.) The current version, Handsome Dan XVIII, is in his 4th season. There is also a man-in-a-suit mascot, also named Handsome Dan.
HD18 and his human counterpart at the 2018 game at Fenway Park
Yale legend has it that the reason the University of Georgia's mascot is a bulldog is that they were founded by missionaries from Yale.
After the Game. Harvard and Yale hate each other's teams, but it's a respectful rivalry. No one is going to overturn cars or set fire to anything if they lose. You, and your car if you drove in, are going to be safe. Just don't talk trash about any of the Boston-area teams, as Harvard is (more or less) in Boston, and lots of Yalies are from New England.
There's not much to eat around either stadium. With Harvard, you're better off going back to Harvard Square or anywhere in Boston proper. If you've been to Princeton, Cambridge will seem familiar to you, with lots of cutesy shops and eateries, including some that seem to be off little streets too quaint to be called "alleys." One of the better-known Cambridge eateries is Grendel's Den, at 89 Winthrop Street, across from Winthrop Square. I've eaten there, and while you go for the atmosphere, the food and service are good, if not great.
Just as the Riviera Café off Sheridan Square in the West Village and Professor Thom's on 2nd Avenue in the East Village were Sox-friendly bars in New York (both are now out of business), there are places in Boston that welcome Yankee Fans.
A Boston Globe profile during the 2009 World Series mentioned Champions, at the Marriott Copley Place hotel at 110 Huntington Avenue (Green Line to Copley). But it has since closed. Still open, and mentioned in the article, are: The Boston Sports Grille, at 132 Canal Street, across from North Station and the Garden (Green Line to North Station); and, right across from Fenway itself, Game On! at 82 Lansdowne Street (Green Line to Kenmore).
The local Giants fan club meets at The Greatest Bar, 262 Friend Street off Canal, a block from the Garden. M.J. O'Connor's, at 27 Columbus Avenue next to the Boston Park Plaza Hotel, is the local home of Jets fans. (Green Line to Arlington.) The Kinsale, at 2 Government Center, is also said to be a Jet haven.
Likewise, the Yale Bowl is bordered on the north side by a residential area and on the other 3 sides by school athletic facilities. New Haven is known as an Italian city, and for its pizzerias. Supposedly, Louis Lassen, owner of Louis' Lunch, invented the hamburger in 1900. As with the classic Philadelphia cheesesteak 30 years later, he took beef scraps and put it on the kind of roll that he had available. The restaurant is still in business: Its current location is at 263 Crown Street, a block south and then west of the Green.
If your visit to Boston is during the European soccer season, as we are now in, there are 2 great area bars at which you could watch your favorite club. The Phoenix Landing in Cambridge is the original Boston-area footie pub, and is still the best. Red Line to Central. The Banshee Pub in Dorchester (which, unlike Cambridge, actually is in the City of Boston) is much more working-class, but if you think you're "hard enough," "come and have a go." (No, I'm not suggesting that anyone will try to fight you: As long as you show respect, you will have that respect returned.) Red Line to JFK/UMass.
New Haven's big "footie pub" is Christy's Irish Pub, at 261 Orange Street, a block east and then north of the Green. The other big one in New Haven, Anna Liffey's, at 17 Whitney Avenue, has gone out of business.
Sidelights. Boston is probably America's best sports city, per-capita. Which doesn't make it an easy place to be a fan of a non-New England team.
On February 3, 2017, Thrillist made a list ranking the 30 NFL cities (New York and Los Angeles each having 2 teams), and Boston came in 8th, in the top 1/3rd. But the "Sidelights" section for them is long, so if you want to read it you might as well go to my 2019 Trip Guide for the Red Sox.
As for New Haven: I've already told you about Yale Field. From 1972 to 1982, the city had a team in adjoining West Haven, in the Class AA Eastern League. As the West Haven Yankees, they won Pennants in 1972, 1976, 1979 and 1980. As the West Haven A's, an Oakland farm team, they won another Pennant in 1982.
They played at Quigley Stadium, which stood from 1947 to 1987, and has been replaced by a high school football stadium. 362 Front Avenue. Bus 261 or 265, and then you'd have to walk a block west on the Boston Post Road (U.S. Route 1) before turning left on Front Avenue for about a 5-minute walk.
For the 1983 season, they moved to Albany, became a Yankee farm team again in 1985, as the Albany-Colonie Yankees, moved to southeastern Connecticut as the Norwich Navigators in 1995, became a San Francisco Giants farm team in 2003, became the Connecticut Defenders in 2006, and moved to Richmond, Virginia for 2010.
With that team, the New Haven Ravens/New Haven County Crosscutters, and the Bridgeport Bluefish out of business, currently, Connecticut's only professional baseball team is the Hartford Yard Goats, playing at Dunkin Donuts Park, at 1214 Main Street, separated from downtown Hartford by the elevated Interstate 84. It's an even 100 miles southwest of Boston's Downtown Crossing, and 39 miles northeast of the New Haven Green.
From 1972 to 2007, the 11,000-seat New Haven Coliseum stood at 275 S. Orange Street, at the corner of George Street. It was home to a series of minor-league hockey teams, most notably the New Haven Nighthawks. They were a farm team of both the Rangers and the Islanders (at different times), and won division titles in 1979 and '80, and reached the final of the AHL Championship, the Calder Cup, in 1974, 1978, 1979 and 1989, but lost all 4.
The construction of The Arena at Harbor Yard in Bridgeport and the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, both designed after Camden Yards in Baltimore rewrote the rules of sports venue construction, made the Coliseum obsolete. Its teams moved out, and it was demolished. Housing has been planned for the site, but is tied up in legal wrangles, so, for the moment, it remains a parking lot.
Before the Coliseum, there was the New Haven Arena. Built in 1927 and seating 4,000 people, it, too, hosted minor-league hockey: The Eagles from 1936 to 1952, and the Blades from then until 1972, when the Coliseum opened.
It also hosted concerts, but its best-remembered concert was cut short. On December 9, 1967, The Doors were supposed to play, but before the show, lead singer Jim Morrison was caught back stage making out with a groupie (not Patricia Kennealy, as Oliver Stone's movie suggested), and was maced by a policeman. The misunderstanding and his eyes were cleared up, but he wouldn't let it go, stopped a song in mid-performance, told the crowd what happened, and became the 1st rock-and-roller ever to be arrested in mid-concert.
The Arena was demolished in 1974. The FBI built its local office on the site -- a touch of irony, given its connection with a "crime." 600 State Street, northeast of the Green.
*
Harvard vs. Yale may no longer be "The Game" to anyone but its own people (players, support staff, other students, coaches, alumni, etc.). But it is one of the most historic rivalries in North American sport.
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