The bombings at the Boston Marathon on Monday had a couple of direct connections to our winter racquet sports.

The marathon was founded in 1897 by the Boston Athletic Association, which had a sumptuous clubhouse on the corner of Boylston and Exeter Streets. The BAA had a court tennis court, under the direction of world champion Tom Pettitt. It also had two fives (handball) courts which were used for the games of squash and squash tennis. In March 1890 the BAA hosted the first adult squash tournament in the world. Richard Sears, the famous national lawn tennis champion, won the event. (The champion’s trophy is surely the oldest squash trophy in the world.)

The BAA still runs the marathon, but the clubhouse was sold to Boston University during the Depression and was torn down in 1961 to make way for a new wing of the Boston Public Library. The first explosion on Monday was on the north side of Boylston, directly across the street from where the BAA clubhouse was situated. The blast damaged windows on the BPL.

The closest squash club to the bombings is the Tennis & Racquet Club, just two blocks up Boylston from the second explosion. The marathon goes right past the club, as the route heads south on Hereford and then takes a left at the T&R clubhouse and heads east down Boylston. A friend, Helen Grassi, was headed the T&R to play tennis at the time of the blasts. She tried three different routes but the whole area was blocked off by police.

“The club physically was not hurt, nor were any of our members or, to the best of my knowledge, their loved ones,” Suzy Schwartz, the president of the T&R, told me. “I think we’re all pretty shaken emotionally, but thankful that those close to us are ok.” The T&R remains closed today, three days after the bombings.