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Myopia Through the Years
Member enthusiasm keeps the country’s oldest polo club thriving. / by Bill Burke
22 myopia polo 2020
he oldest continually active polo club in the country, Myopia can trace its roots back to the 1800s— when the sport was first introduced to the United States. As polo traveled up the coast from New York in 1887, Randolph M. “Bud” Appleton, who played on the Harvard Polo Team, encouraged a few enthusiasts to knock a ball around at Gibney Field. The following summer, more than 200 people traveled by carriage to watch players scrimmage and to listen
to a performance by the Salem Cadet Band. Although a witness to that event declared that “the best playing was done by the band,” Myopia was emboldened by its popularity and issued a challenge to the Dedham Country and Polo Club, igniting an intense rivalry that was to last almost 50 years. “There have been so many great things about Myopia,” former Captain of Polo Lyle Graham says about the venerable club. “You’re looking at a history which has this blend of British
