In 1867 the Club was groomed for the championship of the State; student subscriptions were solicited; class nines were formed to give them sufficient practice, and the dignity of white uniforms was at last attained. Finally the team, accompanied by seventy supporters,--it was long before the day of "rooters,"--traveled to Detroit and met the Detroit Champions. The game lasted three hours and a half, included six home runs, and was won by the University with the wholly satisfactory score of 70 to 18, Detroit being unable to hit Blackburn the University pitcher sufficiently, though, judged by modern standards, his record was not exactly a "shut-out." A return game, however, played in the fall resulted in the defeat of the University 36 to 20, while the final game of the series, a year later, ran to eleven innings with the University finally winning 26 to 24. Soon after this the Detroit team disbanded and for some years baseball languished in the University; partly because of the lack of opponents for so redoubtable a nine, and partly because the first enthusiasm for the game had waned. Interest revived somewhat in 1873, but aside from inter-class games the only available opponents were mostly professional clubs from the neighboring towns, who were ordinarily outclassed by the college men. With the abolition of the old straight-arm pitching in 1875 and the calling of strikes established, the extravagant scores began to be materially reduced. Michigan's first inter-collegiate baseball game was with Wisconsin on May 20, 1882. It was played at Ann Arbor and resulted in a victory 20 to 8. This game came as a result of the formation of an Inter-collegiate Baseball League, composed of Michigan, Wisconsin, Northwestern and Racine, in which the Varsity easily won the championship. Unsatisfactory arrangements for the traveling expenses of the team, however, caused Michigan to withdraw from the League the next year and the nine was forced once more to fall back upon the professional and semi-professional teams in neighboring cities. Oberlin appeared upon the schedule in 1886 and Michigan Agricultural College twice defeated the Varsity the following year. But if these years saw no remarkable schedules, the team was, nevertheless, steadily improving. The fielding average of the '88 team was .908; and though less can be said of the batting, two members, McDonnell, '88, and McMillan, '86-'89, had averages of .448 and .406 respectively. The _Chronicle_ also was jubilant over the financial success of the '88 season which left a surplus of $50 in the treasury, after "elegant new suits" had been purchased.