The Laurel League
A proud union of elite academic colleges where baseball is not merely a sport—it is the visible extension of character, discipline, and the pursuit of intellectual excellence. The Laurel League stands as the scholastic center of the US Collegiate Baseball Association, with each of its member schools wielding outsized cultural influence far beyond the diamond.
The four schools of the Laurel League—Briarwood, Elmhurst, Hawthorne, and Redfern—are among the most prestigious and respected colleges in the United States. Their graduates populate the upper echelons of American life: the judiciary, the clergy, the academy, the press, and increasingly, the corridors of federal governance.
Though the schools differ in philosophy—from the urban pragmatism of Redfern to the transcendentalism of Elmhurst—the Laurel League’s members represent the old American elite. Senators and titans of industry have been educated at these schools. Newspapers quote their faculty as authorities. Their commencement speeches are published in pamphlets and sent to state libraries. They are criticized, at times, for aloofness—but never for irrelevance.
Briarwood College Cardinals
Motto: “Veritas, Virtus, Victoria” (Truth, Virtue, Victory)
Ballpark: Cardinal Grounds
Founded: 1794
Colors: Crimson and Ivory
Briarwood College is one of the oldest and most revered educational institutions in the country. Founded in the late 18th century by Enlightenment-minded clergy and scholars, the college has long stood as a bastion of classical education, moral philosophy, and rhetorical excellence. Its ivy-covered halls and neoclassical architecture evoke the atmosphere of an American Athens, and it draws scions of prominent families from across the Northeast.
Though small in size, Briarwood exerts outsized influence in academic, political, and legal circles. Many of its graduates go on to become judges, professors, clergymen, or civil servants. The curriculum remains steeped in Latin, logic, literature, and moral theology, with a faculty known for rigorous standards and a disdain for vulgar commercialism.
Games at Cardinal Grounds—a pastoral diamond lined with hedgerows and shaded by ancient oaks—are quiet affairs, with students and faculty in formal attire and polite applause greeting good play.
Briarwood is steeped in ceremony. Chapel bells dictate the rhythm of the day, and public disputations are as much a part of student life as athletics. The Honor Code is sacred, and even the baseball team maintains a code of conduct that forbids unsportsmanlike behavior and mandates classical reading in the off-season. The college hymn, “O Cardinal Flame,” is sung at commencement and before rivalry games in the Laurel League.
Elmhurst University Elms
Motto: “In Natura Veritas” (In Nature, Truth)
Ballpark: Quarry Green
Founded: 1839
Colors: Forest Green and Cream
Elmhurst College was founded by natural philosophers, botanists, and transcendentalists seeking a school in harmony with the rhythms of the natural world. Built beside a defunct quarry and surrounded by vast groves of elm trees, Elmhurst remains a small, idyllic institution with a curriculum rooted in the classics, natural sciences, and contemplative study.
The college cultivates an ethos of observation, quiet inquiry, and ecological awareness. Its students are regarded as gentle thinkers—botanists, poets, astronomers, and philosophers—often more comfortable in a field notebook than a debating chamber. Life at Elmhurst follows a slower, more reflective pace, where curiosity is as prized as conviction.
Quarry Green is one of the most picturesque fields in the entire association: carved into a grassy basin where limestone cliffs rise on one side and elm trees cast shadows across the outfield. Birdsong is a constant companion during home games. The field, accommodating of the cliffs that surround it, is asymmetrical–a feature long embraced by the Elmhurst faithful, who call it “a natural diamond.”
Elmhurst is the dreamer’s college. Students meet for poetry readings beneath trees, debate ethics while walking footpaths, and observe the stars from the college’s hilltop observatory. Faculty are famously accessible, and classes are often held outdoors when weather permits. Simplicity is celebrated. Conformity is quietly resisted.
Hawthorne University Maroons
Motto: “Per Ardua, Lux” (Through Hardship, Light)
Ballpark: Ashcroft Field
Founded: 1821
Colors: Maroon and Cream
Founded in the years following the War of 1812, Hawthorne College was established by reformist educators who believed that intellectual refinement could emerge only through discipline, austerity, and earnest labor. It has since earned a reputation as the most rigorous—and perhaps most ascetic—college in the Laurel League. The campus, stark and dignified, is defined by stone buildings, slate roofs, and high archways, often shrouded in morning mist.
Hawthorne students are known for their seriousness of purpose. The school attracts those drawn to the pursuit of higher knowledge through hardship: scholars of metaphysics, mathematicians, theologians, and logicians. It is not uncommon to find oil lamps burning late in dormitory windows, even during holidays.
Ashcroft Field, home of the Hawthorne Maroons, is a modest but venerable ground with little ornamentation save a weathered scoreboard and rows of hard benches. The team’s reputation is that of grim determination—they grind down opponents with efficient, ruthless play, rarely cracking a smile, and never showing weakness.
At Hawthorne, ceremony is quiet and reflective. Students walk in silence between classes, observe regular fasts, and often retreat to the surrounding woods for contemplation. Though secular in administration, the college’s soul is almost monastic. The annual “Night of Lanterns”—when students light small fires across the ridges surrounding Ashcroft Field—is one of the few festive traditions.
Redfern University Ravens
Motto: “Mens Supra Materiam” (Mind Above Matter)
Ballpark: Crenshaw Yard
Founded: 1852
Colors: Black and Cream
Redfern University was established during the Market Revolution as a bold experiment: a modern college dedicated to rational inquiry, applied sciences, and the elevation of human potential through knowledge. Unlike its Laurel League peers—steeped in classical tradition—Redfern embraced the future. It has always been urbane, skeptical, and intellectually aggressive.
Known for its fierce academic atmosphere, Redfern draws sharp minds and sharp tongues—chemists, legal theorists, social philosophers, and engineers. Its students are trained to question everything, debate everyone, and never accept easy answers. While less romantic than Briarwood or Elmhurst, Redfern is often considered the most cutting of the Laurel League schools: a forge for the next generation of reformers, litigators, and public intellectuals.
Crenshaw Yard, the Ravens’ urban home field, is hemmed in by red brick buildings and wrought iron fencing. The air often smells of coal and river fog, and the sound of factory whistles sometimes punctuates innings. It’s a tight park—a venue where precision matters and mistakes are punished.
Redfern students are relentless debaters. They disdain affectation and see elegance in economy. The school prizes eloquence, wit, and the courage to challenge authority. Even their social events—mock trials, philosophical salons, forensic tournaments—are competitions of the mind.