On May 17, 1939, the Columbia baseball team made sports history when the second game of a home doubleheader against Princeton became the world’s first televised sporting event. At the time, fewer than 400 TV sets were owned by the general public. The contest was televised by W2XBS, an experimental station owned by NBC.

Princeton swept the twin bill, taking the second game 2-1 in 10 innings. Since that day, episodes of athletic glory for Columbia have been few and far between. The university is known for struggling in major sports. Its sole Ivy League titles in football (1961) and basketball (1968) are distant memories. College baseball might not be “major,” but the Lions have struggled there, too.

It wasn’t always so. All one has to do is go back 102 years to September 1903, when 16-year-old Eddie Collins enrolled at Columbia. Collins starred at quarterback and became captain of the Lions’ baseball team. He was so talented that during the summer after his junior year of college, he played for the Philadelphia Athletics, using the name “Sullivan” to protect his college eligibility. Unfortunately, he was found out and ruled ineligible for further intercollegiate play. So during his senior year at Columbia, he coached the Lions in baseball before embarking on a full-time career in the major leagues.

Collins played 25 seasons for the Athletics and the Chicago White Sox. His Hall of Fame credentials included 3,315 base hits and a .333 lifetime batting average. He also stole 743 bases, making him one of five players in major league history with at least 3,000 hits and 500 stolen bases.

The other jewel in Columbia baseball lore is, of course, Lou Gehrig. The “Iron Horse” spent two years at Columbia. In some respects, they were unhappy ones: Gehrig came from a poor background and felt that many of his classmates looked down on him.

In the autumn of 1922, Gehrig played halfback and defensive lineman for a Lions football team that compiled a 5-4 record. But his greatness was on the diamond. Gehrig played only the 1923 season for Columbia, spending most of his time at first base and the pitcher’s mound. His exploits at the plate were impressive: 28 hits in 63 at bats for a .444 batting average; six doubles, two triples, and seven home runs for a .937 slugging percentage, and 24 runs scored. On the mound, he went 6-4 with one no-decision. In five of his 11 outings he struck out 10 or more batters.

On April 18, 1923, the day Yankee Stadium opened, Gehrig took the mound for Columbia against Williams College and struck out 17 batters – a Lions record that still stands. Seventeen years later, Gehrig had compiled a .340 lifetime batting average and hit 493 home runs with the Yankees. On April 2, 1939, just two weeks prior to the televised Columbia-Princeton game, the Lions’ most famous alumnus took a seat on the Yankee bench after playing in 2,130 consecutive games. Three months later, he told the nation he was dying. Two years after that, he was gone.

Gehrig and Collins were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939. To this day, Columbia is the only college with two inductees in Cooperstown – and also boasts NFL Hall of Famer Sid Luckman, who became the first-ever televised shortstop with that 1939 squad.

Die-hard Columbia fans also note that Sandy Koufax studied at the university’s School of General Studies in the 1950s, though he never played ball for the Lions. The most recent alumnus to make an impact in the big leagues after taking the field for Columbia was Gene Larkin (Class of 1984), who delivered a world championship to Minnesota with a 10th-inning, bases-loaded single in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series.

That brings us to the present. Columbia’s 2005 baseball season consists of 46 games between March 5 and May 1. In Gehrig’s day, baseball and football were played on South Field, located in the middle of the campus at 116th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. Now home games take place at the Baker Field Sports Complex at the northern tip of Manhattan.

This past Sunday afternoon, the Lions played a doubleheader against Cornell. The first game was scheduled to start at noon, but was pushed back to 12:30 so prospective fans could watch the end of a women’s lacrosse match between the schools on an adjacent field. The Cornell women won 15-5. Then the crowd, such as it was, gathered at the baseball diamond on benches carved into a hill behind home plate.

In keeping with history, these are hard times for Columbia baseball. The team entered Sunday’s doubleheader with a 12-game losing streak and a record of 3-26. The pitching staff has given up 8.72 runs per game and surrendered 10 or more runs on 12 occasions. Entering Sunday, Cornell was 9-14 with two of its wins coming against Columbia.

It was a perfect spring day with temperatures in the low-70s, a gentle breeze coming off the Hudson River, and the sky a clear Columbia blue. Pursuant to NCAA rules governing doubleheaders, each game was slated for seven innings. Forty-seven spectators (all of whom were admitted free) were in the stands.

Cornell drew first blood. The Columbia pitcher was John Bauman, a 6-foot-7 freshman making his third start. The third Cornell batter whacked a fastball over the left field fence, and Big Red led 1-0. The Lions responded with two runs in the bottom of the first, then added another run in the third. An inning later, the roof caved in … for Cornell.

A hit batsman and walk followed by a single to right put the Lions ahead 4-1. Tighe Holden, Columbia’s 6-foot-6, 250-pound first baseman strode to the plate with two men on base and one out. The crowd had grown to 150 people. Lacrosse players had showered and were watching the action. They’d been joined by late arrivals from church and Sunday brunch.

Mighty Tighe swung.

Whack! The ball rocketed over the right-field fence, and Columbia led 7-1. Cornell narrowed the margin to 7-3 with two runs in the top of the fifth. That was enough to make the local faithful nervous, particularly since Bauman’s fastball was losing its zip. But the Lions sealed things in the bottom of the sixth inning with three more runs on two hits and two errors.

Daniel Ramos pitched the final inning for the Lions in relief of Bauman and gave up a run on two hits. But it was too little too late for Big Red. When the final out was recorded, Columbia had its fourth win of the season, a 10-4 triumph. Then the Lions went out and lost to Cornell by the same 10-4 score in the nightcap.