The first baseball team was organized in 1875 as the Riverside Base Ball Club, although baseball had been played on campus at least since 1868. The first recorded intercollegiate men’s game was baseball, on April 3, 1875, when the Riverside Base Ball Club met and defeated a team from Athens by a score of 19 to 10.
The East Tennessee College (later UT) team played in their cadet uniforms. The first game played by a team with the UT name was the March 8, 1879, UT Reds game, in which the team took the field in full baseball uniform of the day. Originally, baseball was played both in the fall and in the spring, and until 1888, it was the only varsity sport. In 1889 fall baseball was discontinued, and football was substituted as the fall sport, although no intercollegiate football games were scheduled in 1890.