Rutgers Unearths the First Tailgate

Rutgers may have been first in more things than football. Rutgers played Princeton in the first college football game on November 1st, 1869. You may be wondering: was there a tailgate? Courtesy of some inquisitive archaeologists, the answer may have been yes: ↵↵⇥Excavation at the Rutgers Stadium expansion in Piscataway has uncovered remains of a tavern from the 1700s and a possible clam bake.↵⇥↵⇥Thousands of artifacts include wine bottles, cutlery and ceramics from the Raritan Landing settlement. There are even clam shells on a bed of ash that may have been part of a clam bake.↵⇥

↵↵So the tailgate may have indeed proceeded the game, but we doubt it. In fact, the Sporting Blog suspects first official tailgate to be the delicious bear meat sandwiches and moonshine spritzers enjoyed by the witnesses to the Great Hanover Witchening in Hanover, New Jersey on April 27th, 1683, an event documented in Goodman John Feinstein’s essential

, available in its 38th printing through Random House Books. Yes, John Feinstein is 500 years old. You’re learning all sorts of exciting new things today, aren’t you?↵