6 April 1896: Modern Olympics open in Athens, Royals play baseball with a walking stick and an orange

6 April 1896: Modern Olympics open in Athens, Royals play baseball with a walking stick and an orange
06/04/2022
During a picnic with the Greek Royal Family, 110 hurdles gold medalist Thomas Curtis, using a walking stick, challenged a battery of Princes who were using an orange as a baseball.

The modern Olympic Games formally opened in Athens, Greece, on 6 April 1896.

The Games of the First Olympiad is in the history books as a huge success since they had the most significant international participation of any sporting event to date: 14 nations and 241 athletes.

The programme included athletics, cycling, fencing, gymnastics, sailing and rowing, swimming, tennis, weightlifting and wrestling.

The participants were all male and all Europeans, except for the United States Team.

King George I of Greece, originally a Danish prince, hosted a luncheon the day after the end of the Games. He met Thomas Curtis, a USA athlete who had just won the 110 metres hurdles gold medal.

The 40-year old King, who was intrigued by how the Americans rooted for each other, asked the 23-year old athlete to stay after the games and let him and the Royal family know more about the United States.

Curtis participated in a picnic in the Vale of Daphne. King George's eldest son, the Crown Prince and later King Constantine, was very interested in the game of baseball.

In his 1932 memoir High Hurdles and White Gloves, Curtis wrote that he was "obliged to demonstrate with a walking stick and an orange."

He added: "We appointed Prince George pitcher and the Crown Prince catcher, and, for my sins, I was named batter. At the first orange pitched, I struck not wisely but too well, and the stick cut the orange in halves, both of which the Crown Prince caught on the bosom of his best court uniform."

While it cannot be sure if the episode spoiled baseball chances to be included in the 1900 Games in Paris, baseball went on to make its Olympic debut as a demonstration sport at the St. Louis 1904 Olympics.

Curtis commented on His Royal Highness' reaction: "He was a good sport and joined in the somewhat subdued laughter, but I think the Americanization of Greece ended right there."

A proud Olympic history.