This Day in Dartmouth History: April 25

April 25, 1906 — Baseball defeats Brown, 1-0, as Clarence Skillin '08 tosses a no-hitter

Hard to believe, but in 1906, the Dartmouth baseball team was already celebrating the 40th anniversary of its first intercollegiate game. The aught-six season didn't get off to a terribly good start with losses in each of the first four games, two by shutout and another that took 12 innings at Cornell. But after blanking Norwich by a final of 13-0, the Big Green were in the win column with four games in four days at four different destinations on tap.

Head coach Tom McCarthy, in his first of two seasons at the helm, decided to start the road trip by sending sophomore southpaw Clarence Skillin '08 to the mound to face the Brown lineup. The move proved to be a smart one as Skillin handcuffed the Bears, holding them hitless for all nine innings to complete the 1-0, no-hit shutout.

The very next day, Dartmouth held Andover without a run in a 6-0 victory, the third consecutive shutout for the Big Green staff. The only other time in program history that Dartmouth pitchers threw three or more consecutive shutouts came during World War II when they had four in a row, though two were against teams from local air force bases.

By the end of the season, Dartmouth had a record just above .500 at 15-14-1 with the lone tie a 4-4, 10-inning contest against … Brown. One of the losses was a 1-0, 16-inning affair at Williams that was the longest game in program history until an 18-inning, 3-2 win over Army in 1968. Only one game has been longer in over 150 years of Dartmouth baseball, that being a 21-inning loss to Penn just last year, tied for the eighth longest game in NCAA history.