Rotblatt
From CarlWiki
Rottblatt is an annual drunken softball game played during Spring Term. It has as many innings as the number of years since Carleton was founded. In recent years, T-shirts for people who arrive at Rotblatt early has become a major CSA budget item, exempted by tradition from rules that prohibit spending on personal property.
History
An enthusiastic and inspired group of young men met in a 2nd Goodhue room one winter night in 1964 and dreamed up a way to play organized softball. The existing Continental League was restricted to seniors, and the underclassmen wanted to play in an organized league. Led by Rick Chap '66 and Bob Leonard '66, the group dreamed up Rotblatt (and kept people in adjoining rooms awake until very early hours). Rotblatt was to be a league of softball teams that would play each other during spring term in decidedly non-serious competition, but accompanied by all the serious trappings of organized baseball. Great attention was paid to recording and publishing complete statistics for all games and players.
CSA funding provided bats and balls. Team captains were selected and a late night player draft was held in a smoke filled room. Since The Continental League played on a field behind the Libe, Rotblatt games were played on a field created from a pasture next to the former Carleton equestrian barn and riding field* (south of Bell Field). The new venue was named Pigeon Field (after the primary residents of the barn in 1965). A season-ending All Star game and banquet was a feature of the first 1965 season. Awards were given for outstanding and outlandish performances (like striking out in a slow pitch softball league with no called strikes). The Continental League was overwhelmed by the new league and disappeared by 1966. A women's league named Wombat appeared for several years in the 1970s.
The Rotblatt Memorial Softball League was named for Marvin J. Rotblatt, a Chicago White Sox pitcher notable for achieving the highest ERA in major league baseball for two of the three seasons in which he pitched (9 games in the 1948 and 1950 seasons). One of the founding fathers of Rotblatt also owned a Marvin J. Rotblatt baseball card. In 1967, Rotblatt came to Carleton to pitch in the All Star game. It was the first of several visits to campus for Rotblatt events.
In the spring of 1967, Rotblatt All Stars batted baseballs from Northfield to the former Metropolitan Stadium (now the site of the Mall of America), home of the Minnesota Twins, for the Twins' opening day game. After hitting a ball onto the infield, the players, Carleton President John Nason, and Schiller presented a Carleton rocking chair to Twins owner Calvin Griffith. That spring also saw the first 100-inning game to celebrate Carleton's 100th graduating class.
Later players continued the long game tradition, adding an inning each year. Eventually, the softball league became a beer ball league as players took it less and less seriously. Ficticious student Joe Fabeetz wrote up descriptions of Rotblatt in The Carletonian in 1977 and 1980. A letter to the editor from 1983 by Fabeetz decried the end of the Rotblatt leagues--but Rotblatt hung in there until at least the late 80s. After that, the term referred only to the latest long game, played with significant libations. The 2007 goal was to play 141 innings.
Don Rawitsch '72 wrote a history of Rotblatt which was published by the league. A copy of the history and other Rotblatt documentation is in the college archives.
- This was possibly Prentiss Field, a women's riding field acquired by the college in 1942 and named in honor of the benefactors, Samuel S. and Maude Laird Prentiss.
