BASEBALL
We brought you up to date oil the dazzling performance of Coach Jeremiah's 1948 ball team by giving you a flash in our last issue on their victories against Pennsylvania and Columbia. The team scored its third straight League victory against Cornell by the score of 14-5, with a 16-hit barrage. Al Quirk started on the mound for the Indians and was replaced in the sixth by Bill West, who went on to be the winning pitcher. First baseman Hank Durham was the offensive star of the game, with four singles in five trips to the plate. Practically everybody else on the Dartmouth team got at least one hit, with a number of stalwarts collecting two, including a triple by sophomore shortstop Buddy Bray. All in all, it was an extremely pleasant afternoon for Dartmouth, far above those famed waves of blue.
The next Saturday, undefeated Navy came to Hanover, breathing fire and brimstone, only to be knocked off by a rampaging Dartmouth team by the close margin of 3-2. Big Emil Hudak started on the mound for the Green and kept things well under control until the ninth, when he weakened with one out and the tying run on first. Bob Amirault replaced him and put out the fire. The three Dartmouth runs were scored in the first inning off the ace Navy pitcher, Burton. During this stanza the Green put together a walk, two infield hits, and a booming triple to left field by Dave Barr for all their scoring. Another feature was a throw to third by left fielder Joe Dey which cut off a potential Navy run and probably saved the game. A double by Hank Durham ran his batting string to seven straight games. With this victory, Dartmouth took over undisputed possession of first place.
The Indians went ahead the next week to run their undefeated string to five straight in Cambridge when they came from behind to defeat Harvard by the score of 9-6. Bob Amirault started for Dartmouth and was still there at the finish, although he was touched for 13 hits and 6 runs in the process. He helped his own cause considerably by belting a home run down the left field foul line in the third inning, during which period the Green managed to score 3 runs. Going into the eighth inning on the short end of a 6-4 count, Dartmouth came up with g big tallies to put the game on ice and win going away. Total scoring for the Green was done on a hearty diet of 10 hits, two each by Captain Ed McNeil, Quinlan, Dey, and Buddy Bray, and one apiece by Hank Durham (his eighth safe encounter), and the aforementioned round-tripper by pitcher Amirault. This victory left Dartmouth in first place, followed by Navy, Army, Cornell, Yale, Princeton, Pennsylvania, Columbia, Harvard, and Brown in that order.
Before a chilled houseparty crowd, crouching in the stands and fortifying themselves against exposure by appropriate medical remedies, Jeremiah's juggernaut spun another gaudy victory, this one over Princeton by the score of 8-3. With Bill West on the mound for the Indians, Princeton jumped into a 3-run lead in the opening inning, making the initial outlook almost as bleak as the weather. The Green produced a lone run in the third, and then in the eighth they exploded for 7 runs to put the game on ice (but literally). By this time. West had retired in favor of Emil Hudak, who went on to win his third League victory. Big Emil also celebrated the occasion by belting a shoulder high pitch into left center field for a home run with two aboard. The other tallies in the big eighth inning resulted from three walks, a couple of errors, and some ringing blows on the part of the Green. In this encounter, Dartmouth showed a terrific drive to come from behind by continuing their heroic efforts with the willow. Nine safe hits boomed off their bats during the frigid afternoon.
The next Saturday was Frank Quinn (of Yale) Day in Hanover. The slender Eli righthander, currently one of the hottest pitchers in college baseball, set Dartmouth down with four hits, while his mates went ahead and won the game for him by the score of 6-2. This was the first League defeat in seven starts for Dartmouth and left them still tied for first place, although another loss would be disastrous for their pennant chances. Emil Hudak earned starting honors for the Green and, despite some fancy strikeout efforts, this was just not his day. Yale touched him for single runs in the first, fourth, and fifth, and then teed off for three more in the seventh. High point of the contest for Dartmouth came in the fifth, when Buddy Brav got the first hit off Quinn and perched happily on first base. Then Hudak came to bat and crashed the first pitch to left-center for a triple (on a dry day with more roll, it would have been another homer) to score Bray and give the Green its first run. In spite of another tally in the eighth, Dartmouth never got seriously back in the ball game, and Coach Jeremiah's heroes went down to their first League defeat. One of the few compensations in an otherwise somewhat gloomy afternoon for the large group of Alumni class and club officers in the stands was to watch the lacrosse team (see below) belting the daylights out of Yale out beyond center field by the cheery score of 21-1.
