Since its founding in 1882, the Knights have fielded their own teams, and at one point, more than 200 Knights played in Major League Baseball.
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America’s first professional baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, formed in 1869. It would take another 13 years before Father Michael J. McGivney and parishioners at St. Mary’s Church in New Haven, Connecticut, founded the Knights of Columbus. At that point, Major League Baseball wasn’t established, but baseball was already the nation’s game.
It was a game Father McGivney loved. According to his biography, Parish Priest, the K of C founder helped form The Charter Oaks, a seminarian baseball team at Niagara University, for which he played left field. And as a parish priest, he organized ball games with his parishioners, enjoying the “snappy play” and action on the diamond. …