On Saturday, Oct. 12, 1918, the Stevens High football team defeated Manchester High, 53-0, at Monadnock Park on a wet and slippery field in a drizzly rain.
Five days later, the team was looking for opponents and Claremont’s The National Eagle wrote a brief putting out the word that Stevens was working to fill out the rest of its schedule.
An ongoing epidemic made it necessary.
The 1918 influenza pandemic, commonly called the Spanish flu, lasted 15 months and killed an estimated 50 to 100 million people worldwide, including approximately 675,000 Americans, according to the History Channel.
And just like the current COVID-19 pandemic, the Spanish flu impacted the world of sports. In the Southern California Winter League, some baseball teams wore masks in some games, and the Major League Baseball season was cut one month short. The Boston Red Sox eventually won the World Series that year, beating the Chicago Cubs in game 6 on Sept. 11.
College football went on, despite World War I forcing 18 teams to drop out of the season. Fans donned masks, and the season was shortened with games not starting until October and November. No consensus champion was crowned, but Michigan and Pittsburgh are considered national co-champs.
Not all sports went as well because the Spanish flu was more lethal than the current coronavirus pandemic and was especially fatal in 20- to 40-year-olds. In New England, the influenza reached Boston on Aug. 27, 1918, when several sailors were reported to have the disease, according to the New England Historical Society.
By the third day, the toll rose to 58 cases and sailors were sent to Chelsea Naval Hospital, allowing for the disease to spread around the city of Boston to the rest of Massachusetts and eventually New England.
For the Upper Valley, the worst days were felt in October. Schools, churches and public meetings were shut down. The Stevens football team still finished its season, eventually playing the Colby Academy team in a season finale.
On Oct. 18, 1918, the Vermont Journal published an update on the Spanish flu in Vermont, with 6,555 cases reported for the week before to bring the total number of cases to 16,500.
One of the deaths in the month of October was Jack Inglis of Pelham Bay, N.Y. He was well-known Windsor basketball player and was “a nice young man and an aggressive in all the games he played,” the Journal reported.
By Nov. 8, Vermont and New Hampshire lifted the ban on places of public congregation. While deaths and cases continued throughout the rest of 1918 and into 1919, state officials allowed the public back to socializing.
December marked the beginning of the boys basketball season. The National Acme Manufacturing Company (NAMCO) club was a large part of society in Windsor, according to the Vermont Journal, and fielded a basketball team.
NAMCO was the largest employer in town and a few years later built a large apartment block in town. The basketball team played once or twice a week and competed games against club teams from Claremont; Hanover; Troy, N.Y.; Merritt, N.Y.; and Gloucester, Mass.
The club also hosted doubleheaders featuring high school games. On Jan. 10, 1919, the Windsor High girls team held an intrasquad scrimmage before NAMCO defeated the “All Americans from Troy, N.Y.” by a score of 24-23.
The highlight of the season was playing Gloucester, “one of the best teams in New England.”
“In the last period it was neck and neck, with NAMCO coming forth a winner. Score: 28 to 26,” the Vermont Journal reported on March 14, 1918.
The Windsor High boys basketball team also competed in games during the winter of 1918-19, playing against Hartford High, Bradford High and Randolph High.
All of these basketball games were still supported well. A Dec. 13 story in the Vermont Journal noted how well-attended a game was between NAMCO and Claremont. The articles from those days don’t note the attendance numbers or if masks were worn, but the influenza was still ongoing.
Pete Nakos can be reached at pnakos@ vnews.com.
CorrectionsAlthough p layers on some t eams in the Southern California Winter League wore masks in the winter of 1918-19 because of the Spanish flu pandemic, Major League Baseball itself had no formal protocols to deal with the outbreak, according to Sports Illustrated. The National Acme Manufacturing Co. built the NAMCO Block in Windsor in 1922. Stevens High football played Colby Academy in its final game of the 1918 season. An earlier version of this story overstated the safety protocols in baseball at the time, misstated when The Block was built and misidentified the team Stevens played in the season finale.