ODE TO THE IVY LEAGUE
Spring Teams Fret Over Lingering Snow and Necessity Of Returning to Indoor Cage After Southern Trips
Cornell and Harvard are out to repeat. Yale will have pitching, a tough team to beat.
Columbia's outfit looks stronger this year, While Princeton and Penn will have reason to cheer.
There's one other club in the Ivy League race.
Where will Chief Wonson and company place?
Tesreau has sluggers like Broberg and Burns,
Sommers and Reeves to hit in their turns. Parmer and Zimmer and Dewey and Orr Make an inner defense that will keep down the score.
There's Sexton, McNeary, and Pidge Hughes too,
And Lendo and Wonson a foggin's 'em through.
With this crew on hand (If we're not mistaken)
The Injuns will scalp 'em and bring home the bacon.
FRANK HALL —The Dartmouth.
THE ABOVE IS NOT only a neat little summary of the Dartmouth baseball prospects in poetic form, but it is symbolic of the spirit of spring that would like to prevail in Hanover at this time if only the weather would forget its December glory and turn to April and May with a new outlook on life.
At this writing a fresh fall of three inches or thereabouts of snow has recently blanketed Memorial and Chase fields and planted a cold kiss on the general enthusiasm that everyone would like to generate for the call of "Play 8a11".... the sound of oar sweeping water in a battle of sweat and brawn on the Connecticut. . . .the swish of rawhide slashing wind at a lacrosse match the echo of starter's gun on the cinder track.... the vibration of shoulder crunching shoulder in a spring practice scrimmage. .. .and just plain stretching out in a warm sun while the dreariness of a long winter oozes out of mind and pores.
Perhaps spring will come to northern New Hampshire eventually, but its tardiness is having its effects on the spiritual buoyancy of Dartmouth College and its physical effects on her athletic teams.
Working out in the gymnasium cage has its drawbacks at any time, but it deadens the morale of the teams to have to return to the cage after southern vacation trips, and it practically nullifies any constructive program that Coaches Tesreau, Blaik, Dent, Hoehn, Bowen and Hillman, might hope to put across.
However, to coin a fresh expression, you can talk about the weather but you can't do anything about it, so all the Dartmouth sports representatives are trying to make the best of a discouraging situation.
Big Jeff Tesreau will send his Dartmouth nine into the first Eastern Intercollegiate League conflict against Penn on the 19th of April with little or no hope for any outdoor practice unless there is a sharp change in the local temperature. What benefits were gained from the southern trip will have long since been dissipated by half-a-loaf training in the confines of the cage. This alone would not be so crucial if the League schedule for the Big Green did not demand that the team meet two of its major rivals for championship honors early in the campaign. Perhaps the Indians will have retained enough of their batting eye to down a Penn nine that was massacred by Cornell in its first encounter, but Dartmouth must meet defending co-champion Cornell on the 27th, highly regarded Yale on May 1, and Cornell again on May 4. Full training facilities would be hard put 10 ready a team for such important engagements so soon, so you can well imagine that Dartmouth baseball fans feel that the weather will have more than a mite to say about the Indians' title bid this year.
Oddly enough the local fans still are backing the Dartmouth team as a potential pennant winner. We say oddly enough, because it will take better than an ordinary good team to overcome the handicaps that face the present baseball squad.
The point is, though, that opinion exists that the current Tesreau nine IS better than a fair aggregation. In the field it looks every bit the champion with or without outdoor practice. On the vacation tour it fell apart defensively only once, that game being the rout by Georgetown, 14-5. In this game the ball was tossed around carelessly and erratically, but in the other contests the number of errors totaled far below normal expectations. Bill Parmer on first, Jack Orr on second, Bob Dewey at short, and Jack Zimmer, Fred Maloon and Bob Fitch (there is a three way battle going on for the third-base position) will all field capably. In sophomore Dick Burns, left fielder, Jeff uncovered a ball hawk who compares favorably with George Hanna '39, than whom there was no more brilliant in college ranks. Gus Broberg has been recognized as a good defensive center fielder since his sophomore year. Tuffy Reeves, hampered by injuries for three of his four college years, has apparently licked his many jinxes, and he, too, is a fast, steady outfielder in the right field post. The catching will be adequately taken care of by George Sommers. The pitching will be good at all times and at some times excellent, although the twirlers are hampered by the lack of outdoor work to a
If there is a question of doubt concerning the team, it lies at the plate. Against training-trip opposition the team was not a high-scoring unit. It lost to Maryland, 3-2, to Navy by the same score, defeated Virginia, 7-6, lost to Virginia, 6-5, and walloped the shaky pitching of George Washington University for an 8-2 victory. It is not, to be fair, a team that will fail to hit just average pitching, but it will see little average pitching in League tests. However it may be that the members of the team have had scarcely any chance to sharpen their batting eyes. Certainly the batting in the cage is next to useless. If this can be blamed for the soft voices the Indians carry with them up to home plate, maybe we may expect a louder ring from the Dartmouth bats when the season gets underway. Outfielders Burns, Reeves and Broberg should hit well. Sommers can be expected to hit hard, occasionally. Orr will be a steady hitter. Dewey and Parmer look as if they might hit with experience. The third base job. will be delegated to the man who excels at the plate. Maloon, on his past record, looks like the candidate, but he has had a sore arm since his crack-up in the Princeton hockey tilt, and has been slow in recovering. Soon, however, all of the many questions that confront every baseball fan as well as Coach Tesreau, will be answered one way or the other.
Tommy Dent's lacrosse team displayed its lack of experience on its vacation schedule, just as Coach Dent had predicted. The lacrosse men, as you may or may not know, take the night shift in the cage when indoor workouts are necessary. With only four veterans returning from his two consecutive New England League championship teams, Coach Dent attempted to mold a strong unit to take with him against the traditionally strong southern lacrosse foes. The Green was able to win the Swarthmore contest, 5-4, but thereafter the results were one-sided with Navy winning, 13-3, Maryland, 12-4, and Army, 13-3. Right off the bat the Dartmouth team will meet the odds-on favorite to win this year's title-Harvard. The next strongest team in the League this year looks like Yale. Dartmouth will face the Bulldogs in its second fray on May 2. The prospects of Coach Dent's building a smooth passing attack and a cool defense in short order are nil. We hope that you aren't by this time bored with what may appear to an outsider to be well-planned alibis, but we will have to suffer the chance in order to present conditions as they actually are.
PRE-SEASON VIEW OF GREEN HURLING CORPS Members of one of the best-balanced pitching staffs Jeff Tesreau has had in years include.left to right, Hal (Chief) Wonson '40, Johnny Lendo '41, George Sexton '41, Bob MacNeary '42, and Pidge Hughes '41.
