For Love of the Game An Appreciation of Tom Parr ... - Hopkins School

From the Archives...
Not long ago visitors to
our campus were greeted
as they crested the hill by
two massive sandstone pillars.
These columns bore the words
“Pratt Field” and “Hopkins
Grammar School.” They were
moved at some expense (each cap
alone weighs roughly one and a half
tons) from their first location near
the Yale baseball stadium. They
These 4 photos capture the remains of the great sandstone
pillars that marked the entrance to Pratt Field.
now rest in the woods near the new
fields opened this spring, and they
bring to mind the story of how athletics
came to be such a pivotal part
of the culture at Hopkins.
In the late nineteenth century, athletics
at Hopkins was run on a very
ad hoc basis. Students (Walter
Camp among them) formed an athletic
association and charged dues
in order to finance the purchase of
uniforms and the scheduling of
games. Squabbles over the authority
of the association to name teams
led to accusations of cronyism, and
so for a period the athletic association
stumbled and fell. The school
grounds at Wall and High Street
provided only a small area for recre-
ation. Outfielders during baseball
games really did play “out of the
field” – in the street, in fact. They
tried a nearby park, but soon a professional
baseball team and then a
housing development ended that.
The dream of having real fields for
organized sports remained unfulfilled
until the arrival of Charles
Pratt, Class of 1891.
Pratt came to Hopkins from St.
Louis at a time when interest in athletics
was again rising among the
students. He served as the senior
class secretary and class treasurer,
the quarterback for the football
team, and he was captain and third
baseman for the baseball team. His
senior superlative was “Base Ball
Krank.” He was active in nearly every
other club listed in the school’s
Annual. Clearly he was an influential
young man, and apparently also a
young man of means. Upon graduating,
he remarked to the Head of
School, George Fox, that he would
donate an athletic field. Fox took
this to be a promise and reminded
Pratt of his comment a few years
later when Pratt had begun working
in New York City. Pratt made good
on his promise and offered $7000
toward the purchase of a field. The
Committee of Trustees added $1500,
40 V I E W S F R O M T H E H I L L
and by 1900 they had purchased ten
acres at the foot of the hill below
Forest Road near Central Avenue in
Westville. Shortly after Hopkins
moved to its current location, Yale
was interested in expanding its athletic
facilities and offered to trade
land from their forest preserve
adjoining Hopkins’ campus for Pratt
Field. Pratt’s mother and George
Fox were both present when the
stone pillars were again put in place
at a newly rechristened “Pratt Field.”
Hopkins historian Thomas Davis in
his Chronicles of Hopkins Grammar
School points out the significance of
Pratt’s gift: “The donation of Pratt
Field marked the beginning of
school financing of student athletics
as a legitimate educational activity.
Charles Pratt had started a ‘vested
interest’ which the trustees, in order
to guard adequately, had to keep
increasing until athletics won a recognized
place in the educational
program.”
Quod felix faustumque sit,
Thom Peters, Archivist
tpeters@hopkins.edu