HISTORY

The Roland Park Baseball Leagues began service to the community in 1952. The league is regarded as one of the oldest youth baseball organizations in the United States.

Merwin W. “Jake” Jacobson, a Baltimore Oriole from 1919 through 1925, was the driving force in bringing baseball to the Roland Park Community. The Roland Park Midget Baseball League, Inc. was created and chose not to become a member of Little league Baseball of Williamsport, PA. They wanted the league to remain independent of local city and county recreation councils.

Their objective was to grow children through baseball, rather than grow baseball with children.

Article one of the league’s bylaws states, “the object shall be to implant the participating boys and girls of the community the ideals of honesty, loyalty, courage, good sportsmanship, teamwork and fair play so that they may become finer, stronger and happier boys and girls and grow to become good clean healthy men and women and responsible citizens. The objective is also to be achieved by providing competitive athletic games. The supervisors will bear in mind, however, that the attainment of exceptional athletic skills as well as the winning of games is secondary to the molding of their characters and personalities.”

The original teams names were picked by the sponsors. The 1952 league was comprised of six teams and 115 players ages 9 through 12.

Our name changed in 1958 with the addition of “the Pony League”; giving children aged 12 – 14 the opportunity to play baseball after the “midget league”. Hence, we became the Roland Park Baseball Leagues, Inc.

In 1975, our league accepted the applications of Phoebe Flowers, Elizabeth Licht, and Sue Beer. Roland Park Baseball was now a true representative of the community with girls and boys playing on the same teams. Our attempt to start a girl’s softball league in the early ‘90’s was short lived. Thirty years later, Roland Park Baseball cherishes every child with a bat, glove, and a desire to play.

Our league has expanded so that today we have five leagues covering ages 5 through 14. Over 600 children play in the Roland Park Baseball Leagues today. We field 3 travel teams that play in the “Mid-Maryland Travel Association Travel League”.

Gilman School remains the anchor of the league. On any given night, we will have as many as 6 games being played simultaneously at Gilman. Roland Park baseball games will also be played at St. Mary’s Seminary, Macsherry Field/Roland Park Elementary & Middle School, St. Paul’s School for Boys, Roland Park Country School & Bryn Mawr.