Football practice at Yale University, ca. 1912

Football practice at Yale University, ca. 1912
– Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Connecticut has traditionally offered a diverse array of sports and recreational opportunities to visitors and residents alike. Attractions like Bristol’s Lake Compounce and West Haven’s Savin Rock Amusement Park provided important respites from long work hours and city living as far back as the mid-1800s. As the state’s manufacturing base expanded, large factories organized baseball and basketball leagues that engaged teams of workers in competition with one another. In addition, towns like Brooklyn and Danbury hosted annual fairs, which received visitors from all over New York and New England. Today, Connecticut is home to numerous professional and semi-professional sports franchises, a strong collegiate athletic tradition, and offers abundant locations for swimming, hiking, fishing, boating, and other forms of recreation.

Featured

The Boston Braves playing during spring training

Spring Training Baseball Comes to Wallingford

During World War II, travel restrictions limited the distance baseball teams traveled to begin their training; the National League’s Boston Braves trained in Wallingford. …[more]

Learn More

Powel, Harford. 1926. Walter Camp, the Father of American Football; an Authorized Biography. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015066066922.
Jacobs, Jeff. 2014. “Morgan Bulkeley: The Biggest Sportsman to Come from Hartford.” Hartford Courant. http://www.courant.com/courant-250/moments-in-history/hc-250th-morgan-bulkeley-0302-20140301-story.html (September 14, 2015).
Harrison, Don. 2011. Hoops in Connecticut: The Nutmeg State’s Passion for Basketball. Charleston, SC: History Press.
“Friends of Vintage Base Ball.” 2013. http://www.friendsofvintagebaseball.org/.
Arcidiacono, David. 2010. Major League Baseball in Gilded Age Connecticut: The Rise and Fall of the Middletown, New Haven, and Hartford Clubs. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company.
Harrison, Don. 2008. Connecticut Baseball: The Best of the Nutmeg State. Charleston, SC: History Press.
Rubin, Sam. 2003. Baseball in New Haven. Charleston, SC: Arcadia.
Bielawa, Michael J. 2003. Bridgeport Baseball. Charleston, SC: Arcadia.
Codagnone, Brian. 2007. The Hartford Whalers. Charleston, SC: Arcadia.
Rubin, Sam. 2006. Yale Football. Charleston, SC: Arcadia.
“Guide to the Walter Chauncey Camp Papers.” 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/mssa.ms.0125 (May 13, 2012).
Malan, Douglas S., and Fay Vincent. 2008. Muzzy Field: Tales from a Forgotten Ballpark. New York: iUniverse.