Crosstown rival Washington College (now Washington & Lee University) provided the opponent for several of those first contests, though the team did travel to Lynchburg in 1867 to play the Hill City Club, where they fell by one run.  The team’s first game against the University of Virginia came in 1889, a rivalry that still continues as the teams are scheduled to play each other during the upcoming season.

The schedule became broader as the years went by, as annual games against in-state opponents Randolph-Macon, Hampden-Sydney, Richmond College and VPI (Virginia Tech) became the standard.  The rivalry with Washington & Lee was also kept up until the spring of 1904, when an “overenthusiastic response of spectators” caused the two schools to cease athletic relations.

In the early 1900’s, three players stood out on the diamond so much so that they were inducted into the VMI Sports Hall of Fame some 60-plus years later.  William Couper ‘04 holds the distinction as being both the earliest Baseball Hall of Famer, as he was also the first recipient of a VMI monogram.  A first baseman and captain of the ‘04 team, Couper was inducted as part of the inaugural class of 1972, along with four other baseball players.  Robert Y. Conrad ‘05 earned induction in 1974, as his play in right field and as a right tackle on the football team, earned him the honor, though it was awarded posthumously, as he was killed in combat during the Battle of the Marne in World War I.  John L. Pitts ‘16 was an outstanding pitcher who received the Williamson Graham Cup for overall athletic excellence and was inducted into the VMI Sports HOF in 1975.

Until the 1921-22 season, the squad played home games on the Parade Ground, just as the football team did.  In that season, both teams relocated to Alumni Field, a site which the football team still uses today, while the baseball team shifted operations to Patchin Field in the early 1960’s.

In that historic first game at Alumni Field in April of 1922, the Keydets hosted the University of South Carolina.  VMI Hall of Fame inductee Frank M. Page, Jr. ‘23 hurled the first of his two 1922 no-hitters that day.  In the game, shortstop Joseph M. Hatchett hit a majestic home run to center field on the first pitch thrown to a VMI batter at the field.  Later in the inning, Edward Ryder hit another long round-tripper to the same spot, helping Page earn the 8-0 victory, the first of six consecutive wins for Page as he wound up the season with an 8-2 mark.  Included in that total were a pair of two-hitters, a one-hitter, and another no-hitter, this time against VPI in the final home game of the season.  Those outings accompanied a 16-strikeout performance in a 4-2 win against Roanoke College, which still didn’t match an 18-strikeout game he posted in 1920.

The team went 11-2 in that season, and followed that up by going 13-4 in 1923, including two shutouts of Virginia by Page.  Those teams have been regarded by some to be among the greatest in VMI history.

At the turn of the decade, two more future VMI Hall of Famers donned the Red, White and Yellow in the persons of Gilly Laughorn ‘31 and Lefty Williams ‘31.  Laughorn was a slugger who led the team in home runs and earned honorable mention All-American status as a first classman, while Williams was regarded as a standout pitcher who posted two-hitters of both Cornell and VPI as a third classman.  Both players were offered contracts from major league clubs, as Laughorn went on to play for three seasons in the Chicago White Sox organization.  Laughorn and Williams led the teams to solid campaigns of 10-6 (1929), 11-4 (1930), and 12-6 (1931).

1938 would become a season long remembered in VMI baseball lore.  The team posted seven wins, a five-win improvement from the year before, and was regarded as one of the program’s finest sides with some outstanding individual talent.  Charles “Billy” Robertson ‘38 was a noteworthy hurler who averaged over ten strikeouts per contest, while his catcher was the incomparable Paul Shu.  Shu earned All-State and All-Conference recognition in football, led the basketball team in scoring, won the state javelin title in addition to his exploits on the diamond.  But it was an event away from the field that brought the program a great deal of attention, though perhaps indirectly.  In 1938, the movie Brother Rat was released, with future President Ronald Reagan playing Dan Crawford and Eddie Albert portraying Bing Edwards, a pair of VMI baseball players who bend the rules just weeks before graduation and must scramble to stay in school and secure their degree.  It is this picture that many casual acquaintances of VMI have when referencing the Keydet baseball program.

As the Institute resumed its normal operations following World War II, a pair of players stood out for their performances on the field in Claude “Red” Patton ‘50 and Oliver “Red” Williford ‘51.  Patton, who was inducted into the HOF in 1975, was a unanimous All-State selection in 1950, while Williford was named All-State in four consecutive seasons, while he also won the Cincinnati Medal and the Silver Star for gallantry in action during his distinguished military career.

In the mid 1950’s, the team turned in three consecutive 12-win seasons, marking the program’s best run until Charlie McGinnis’ days at the helm of the program in the early 1960’s.  Beginning in 1962, McGinnis’ nine accrued 40 wins over the next three seasons (1963-65), including a 15-9 mark in 1965 that stood as the program’s last winning season until the 2006 campaign, when Marlin Ikenberry’s troops posted a 30-25 record.

When putting together any list of the top pitchers in the program’s history, certainly near the top along with Page, Williams, & Robertson would have to be the name of Percy Sensabaugh ‘64.  As a third classman, Sensabaugh ranked second in the country with 106 strikeouts, a record that still stands as the program’s top mark.  That, along with his 0.67 ERA, may represent the finest statistical season on record, though his second class year (1.04 ERA, 71 K, 69 IP, 5 CG) certainly ranks a close second.  Twice during the 1964 campaign, Sensabaugh struck out at least 20 batters, doing so against West Virginia on April 11 before sitting down 21 in an 11-inning contest against The Citadel later that year.  However, his playing career was cut tragically short due to an arm injury sustained while throwing the shot put, dashing any hopes of a professional career.

However, Sensabaugh was not the only star player of those mid-1960’s teams.  The 1963 team saw a pair of newcomers that went on to earn All-American status, as Joe Bush and Donny White each helped the team to new batting average and stolen-base records.  Bush, who later earned induction into the HOF on his football credentials, was a center fielder for that team, while White, a sure-handed shortstop with wheels, earned induction in 1975.  White, also an accomplished football halfback, led the team in hitting for three consecutive seasons, including a high of .391 as a third classman, while his 26 stolen bases in 1963 was the second-highest mark in the nation that season.  White’s relationship with the baseball program has now spanned into its fifth decade, as he has served as player, assistant coach, head coach, and now as the Institute’s athletic director.

Just four years later, the team would go on an unlikely run under the direction of Chuck Roys.  After finishing the regular season with a 7-7 mark, the 1969 Keydets, under the direction of Chuck Roys, forced a one-game playoff against William & Mary to determine the Southern Conference’s Northern Division Champions. Despite falling in three of their previous four meetings with the Tribe that year, the Keydets claimed a thrilling 13-inning decision that lasted deep into the Colonial Heights night to defeat W&M 5-3 and earn a spot in the SoCon Championship Series against Furman the next day.  But there was no magic left in the Keydet bats, as the team fell 7-2 and 5-4 to the Paladins, leaving their first SoCon Championship appearance empty-handed.  That team was led by a standout fourth classman pitcher by the name of Vern Beitzel, who later went on to serve as head coach for four seasons.  He was joined by J.C. Hanks and Timothy White, each of whom helped shoulder the offensive load.  In fact, White hit over .330 for three consecutive years, while helping to almost single-handedly end VPI’s 19-year winning streak over the Keydets in VMI’s come-from-behind, 8-6 victory.

The coming seasons would be a struggle for the program, as they failed to win more than six games in a season until the 1982 team, when first-year head man Donny White claimed Southern Conference Coach of the Year honors for engineering a dramatic turnaround.  Under his direction, the team steadily improved its win totals in the SoCon over the next six seasons while players like Phil Hubbard ‘83, Greg Weddle ‘86 and Chris Finwood ‘88 each became standouts who would later earn induction into the HOF.  Hubbard, who batted.424 as a junior, still ranks as one of the top sluggers in VMI history, as his .350 career batting average is the third-highest total of all time.  Meanwhile, Weddle’s exploits at the plate still have him as the career leader in slugging percentage (.633), while his .328 batting average and 146 RBI also rank in the top five.

During those seasons, the team posted back-to-back .500 seasons for the first time since the 1962 & 1963 campaigns.  In 1987, White led the Keydets to a 16-16-1 record, and more importantly, an 8-4 SoCon mark.  The team finished second in the North Division that season, earning a berth into the Conference Tournament.  There, after dropping their opening game to Western Carolina, the Keydets slugged their way to back-to-back wins against Davidson and Appalachian State, though they needed extra innings to dispatch the Mountaineers.  The Keydets then faced off against Western Carolina in the Championship Finals, where they fell 9-4.  That run saw the end of White’s VMI coaching career, as Paul Maini took over the reins and saw great success his first year, leading the team to a 20-20 mark, while Maini earned SoCon Coach of the Year honors that season.

Finwood, as so many of the program’s fine players have done, would return to Lexington to head up the program just a few short years after his playing days had wrapped up.  During those playing days, Finwood had helped lead VMI to a pair of Northern Division Championships (1987, 1988), while he was voted All-Southern Conference three times in his career.  Just three years after his graduation, Finwood took over the program after a disastrous 2-35-1 campaign, and immediately began to right the ship.  In his three years, Finwood won 52 games, the fifth-most in school history, while his eighth-seeded 1993 team went on one of the most magical rides in VMI athletic history, defeating three consecutive favored opponents to advance to the SoCon Tournament Finals, where they eventually fell to second-seeded Western Carolina.

That ‘93 team also featured several individuals that would continue the VMI baseball legacy over the following years.  Along with Finwood, the team also included assistant coach Tom Slater ‘90, who would serve for three seasons as VMI’s head coach, engineering a 16-14 record in the Southern Conference in 2003, before eventually moving on to take over as the head coach at Auburn prior to the 2005 season.  Playing on that team were a pair of catchers that would go on to serve as assistant coaches for the Keydets in Chris Chernisky ‘94 and Marlin Ikenberry ‘95.  Chernisky took over the Niagara program prior to the 2005 season, while Ikenberry is in his fourth season at the helm of the Keydet program. 

A freshman pitcher/outfielder on the 1993 team was Portsmouth, Va. native Ryan Glynn ‘96.  A power source at the plate and a strikeout artist on the mound, Glynn’s 8.78 strikeouts per nine innings still ranks as the highest in VMI history, while his 31 home runs and 126 RBI place him among the top ten in each category as well.  Impressive numbers, considering the fact that Glynn only played three seasons for the Keydets.  That was because Glynn was drafted in the 4th round (94th overall) of the 1995 MLB First-Year Player Draft by the Texas Rangers, the highest selection of any Keydet in the program’s history.  And after four-plus seasons playing in the Rangers’ minor league system, Glynn made his major league debut on May 16, 1999 against the Baltimore Orioles.  Just over a week later, Glynn started his first major league contest, doing so in Tampa Bay on May 25, 1999.  In that game, Glynn pitched 4.1 innings in a Rangers’ 7-2 victory.  In all, Glynn pitched in the majors in five different seasons, winning nine contests and striking out 116 batters, while he earned VMI Sports HOF induction in 2005, the most recent baseball inductee.

Glynn’s final season playing for the Keydets marked the first campaign for one of VMI’s most successful coaches, Scott Gines ‘83, who compiled 104 wins over six seasons.  Gines’ final season came in 1999, when the team posted a new school-record win total with a 22-27 campaign during which they also went 13-16 in the League.  However, an 0-2 finish in the SoCon tournament dashed the dreams of yet another miracle tournament run. 

The 2000 season would see one of the greatest offensive statistical seasons in the program’s history, as Chris Catanzaro ‘01 hit .392, doing so with 76 hits, 25 of which were doubles, along with 56 runs and 46 RBI.  Those numbers helped him to claim the career records which still stand today of a .356 batting average, 72 doubles, 411 total bases and 155 RBI, while his second-place total of 258 hits was only eclipsed in 2006 by the culmination of the stellar career of Kelly Sweppenhiser ‘06. Taking over in 2001 was Slater, who returned once again to the VMI program after serving for six seasons as an assistant coach at Auburn.  While serving under legendary AU baseball coach Hal Baird, Slater recruited several future major leagues, including Tim Hudson, Chris Bootcheck and Gabe Gross.  Despite only winning 25 games in his first two seasons at the helm, Slater laid the groundwork for some of the finest seasons in VMI baseball history in the coming years.

It got started in 2003, when Slater’s bunch went 25-27, setting yet another new record for wins in a season, while his 16-14 SoCon mark earned him Coach of the Year honors from the League.  It didn’t hurt that the seventh-seeded team also won a pair of games in the SoCon tournament, defeating both third-seeded Citadel and fifth-seeded Furman by 2-1 scores before being ousted by fourth-seeded UNC Greensboro.  The loss was a bittersweet ending to the 75-year relationship between VMI and the Southern Conference, as the Institute joined the Big South Conference in the Fall of 2003.

And with the new Conference affiliation came a new coach.  Ikenberry took the reins after serving for three seasons as an assistant under Slater.  After a disappointing 2004 season that saw the team go 23-32 in its inaugural Big South campaign, Ikenberry’s boys made sure the rest of the league knew the Keydets were a force to be reckoned with in 2005, posting 27 wins and an 11-13 conference record, earning their first berth into the Big South Championship.

For the fourth time in five seasons, the 2006 squad again surpassed the school record for wins in a season.  But the team’s 30 wins was only half the story, as the team lost only 25 contests, marking the program’s first winning season since McGinnis’ 1965 team.  The team also scored a pair of historic firsts, including a series win at Auburn to open up the season, the first time the Keydets had ever claimed a series victory against an SEC team.  Then on the season’s final weekend, VMI took two of three against #16 Winthrop, marking the first series win against a ranked team in program history. 

That spring, the team bid farewell to undoubtedly one of the top bats to ever don red, white and yellow, as Kelly Sweppenhiser was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays, and, later that summer, became only the second Keydet to reach AAA, doing so with the Syracuse SkyChiefs in September 2006.  Sweppenhiser graduated with numerous records and honors, as his 263 hits, 172 runs, 411 total bases, .457 on-base percentage helped him to become the VMI’s first Louisville Slugger Freshman All-American and first Dick Howser Award Watch Listee. 

The 2007 season will long stand as a watershed moment in the history of the program.  Gray-Minor Stadium, named after a pair of former VMI catchers in Sen. Elmon Gray ’46 and Gil Minor ‘63, was christened on Feb. 16, when the Keydets claimed a 10-2 decision over Bucknell.  That would be a telling sign of things to come for VMI at Gray-Minor Stadium in ‘07, as the Keydets went 23-7 in their new home, including wins over #3 Virginia, VCU and Richmond. 

In addition to its new digs, the program also achieved several firsts, including their first-ever national ranking (holding the 30th spot for consecutive weeks in Collegiate Baseball’s poll), a pair of wins over top-ten teams (with a win at #10 Auburn joining the home win over #3 Virginia) and back-to-back 30-win seasons.  Sophomore Michael Bowman took down a pair of school records by striking out 110 batters in 99.0 innings, on his way to Second Team All-Conference accolades.  Meanwhile, junior Trey Barham became the school’s career wins leader, helping pace a pitching staff that posted its lowest ERA in 33 seasons.

The upward trend continued in 2008, as the Keydets not only posted their third straight winning season (29-26), but posted the team’s best conference finish since joining the Big South.  At 14-7, the Keydets tied for second place in the league standings, tying the school record for conference winning percentage from the 1987 squad.  The 2008 team also knocked off a ranked opponent for the fourth straight year and saw three players drafted, including Michael Bowman, who was selected in the ninth round by the Milwaukee Brewers.  It marked the third-highest a VMI player had ever been taken in the Major League Baseball draft.

In 2009, the program took some impressive steps forward despite battling through a difficult campaign.  For the fifth-straight year, the Keydets had multiple players named All-Conference, while also claiming the program’s first Big South Championship win, upsetting fifth-seeded Gardner-Webb.  In addition, the Keydets opened the season at #1 North Carolina, marking the first time in program history that VMI had faced the nation’s top team.

2010 saw a victory over #1 Virginia at Gray-Minor Stadium, the first win for any VMI athletic team over a top-ranked opponent. The 2010 team blistered the ball at the plate, setting new school records for batting average (.325), slugging percentage (.529), hits (629), runs (414), doubles (133), home runs (78), RBIs (390), at bats (1933) and total bases (1022). Freshman second baseman Cory Spangenberg earned three Freshman All-American honors, in addition to being named the VaSID Rookie of the Year, while senior first baseman Jordan Ballard was drafted by the Colorado Rockies. 

The 2011 season saw the Keydets earn their sixth winning season in seven years, led by Sam Roberts and Alex Haitsuka, both of whom were named First Team All-Big South. Roberts made history by becoming the program’s all-time leader in hits, walks and runs scored, which helped him be grabbed by Oakland in the MLB draft, while teammate Graham Sullivan earned his second straight Second Team All-Conference nod.

2012 brought a young team to Lexington, but the Keydets still knocked off VCU for the first time in five years and saw Jacob Morley finish his career in the program’s top 10 in hits, games played and several other categories. Adam Lopez (21st round, Chic.White Sox) and Coby Cowgill (23rd,Texas) were chosen in that year’s MLB draft.

2013 was a building year for the Keydets, but did see senior Rob Dickinson earn Big South Player of the Year honors after missing .400 by just one hit and finishing at .399. He was VMI’s first conference player of the year ever, and was joined on the all-conference squad by Matt Winn, who was the Second Team All-Big South catcher.

VMI posted a winning season in 2014, helped by MLB draft picks SP Connor Bach (21st round, Washington) and SP Reed Garrett (16th round, Texas) and Garrett’s no-hitter Feb. 21 against Lafayette. The no-hitter was the first regular season no-hitter in Gray-Minor Stadium history, and set the stage for a year that saw Garrett and Brandon Angus earn Second Team All-Big South honors, VMI beat #1 Virginia Feb. 25 in Charlottesville and defeat Kentucky on a walk-off on opening weekend. The Keydets also played the program’s longest game ever (by time), a 16-inning win over High Point on April 13. The Keydets return to the Southern Conference in 2015.

The Keydets returned to the Southern Conference in 2015 and had a .500 league record in the first year under alumnus Jonathan Hadra. VMI won its first main draw conference tournament game since 2003 and saw two players drafted, Matt Winn and Jordan Tarsovich. Winn earned All-American honors, becoming the first Keydet to make an upperclass AA team outright, and was one of three finalists for the Johnny Bench Award.