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When people think of spring term, what is immediately repeated is “spring term, no rules.” This cry is sometimes accompanied by the ever so classy raising of the shirt. But in all seriousness, spring term is considered to be a time involving the consumption of large amounts of alcohol, and of course Spring Concert and Rotblatt.
Spring Concert is wonderful, but the event that is truly looked forward to is Rotblatt. This is an entirely unique tradition that has been a part of Carleton’s history since 1964. This wonderful event actually started as an intramural league that only had four teams, and the first game was played with a grapefruit.
When the game was still considered a serious league in 1966, Marv Rotblatt, the mediocre professional baseball player who was living in Chicago at the time, actually came to watch an All-star game of the league.
Thanks to Bob Greenberg ’68 who personally contacted Rotblatt, he actually participated in the Allstar game of Rotblatt that ws created to honor his coming to Carleton’s campus.
After the game, Rotblatt attended a banquet at Goodhue, which at the time served as one of the campus’ dining halls. President Nason even came, and he heard the stream of dirty jokes that Marv Rotblatt was spewing out through the course of dinner.
It wasn’t until Carleton’s centennial celebration that Rotblatt began to transform into the game that we know today.
There was an inning for every year that the school was open and all of the players had to be intoxicated in one form or another.
Obviously, the rules have changed slightly since then. For a while there was a separate Rotblatt League and Rotblatt game. It is rumored that the tee shirts that are distributed at the beginning of each game was a tradition that began as a way for the commissioners of the game, who were separated from the league, to prank the league.
The game commissioners distributed tee shirts that depicted the last supper as a wild drinking event.
Although Carleton historians are unclear about the truth of this legend, it certainly is a nice way to think of this wonderful tradition beginning.
Rotblatt the game was soon the only remnant left of the former league, and yet this tradition lives on every year.
This year, the game is celebra ing 149 innings: and so starting at 5:00am this Saturday the wonderful tradition will live on.
For a more comprehensive history of the game check out https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=AKoI5U_Xgec , a video made by junior Evan Olawsky on the subject.