Baseball

Coach Bob Shawkey's baseball team returned from its spring trip in good shape and baseball enthusiasts predicted a big season ahead, although Coach Shawkey tried to temper this optimism and rightly so. But when, after the opener with Holy Cross had been rained out, the Indians opened by defeating Columbia 2-0 and Penn 7-6 on successive days, the drums began to beat again. Since those games Dartmouth has played nine more contests and has won only two. Included in these contests were six league games, only one of which Dartmouth won.

It is difficult to point a finger at what is wrong. Unlike last spring, most of the losses have been by heavy scores (as were the wins), but many factors seem to have been responsible. Defensive fielding has been quite poor with the lapses coming in crucial innings and in bunches. Dartmouth's pitching also has been spotty, but fielding errors probably have helped to account for this. Perhaps the real reason has been the lack of power at the plate. Dartmouth has a few players in the lineup like Bill Beagle, John Mansfield, George Becker and John Stoughton who can hit away, but the Big Green hits have been scattered in most games, and in the clutch the Indians just can't produce. Coach Bob Shawkey has been juggling his batting order and his lineup in almost every game to try and produce a team which will be both strong in the field and at the plate, but to date nothing has seemed to work. Second base has been particularly vulnerable, with Doug Melville and John Edison alternating at this berth, and both have made costly errors. Recent league statistics are particularly revealing as they show only one Dartmouth player in the top sixteen hitters (Doug Melville ranked 12th with five hits in 14 times at bat for a .357 average). Captain Bob Feltman, the only Big Green player among the league's pitching leaders, has won two league games and lost one.

Coach Bob Shawkey puts some of the blame for recent losses on the slowness of the team. "This is a slow club," commented Shawkey, "slow fielding, slow at bat and a bit slow in reacting to situations."

But Shawkey feels that the club will improve in the final two weeks of play. Morale is still high and the players are trying to the best of their ability.

The recent Dartmouth-Army game was a good example. Trailing 4-1 in the seventh inning, Dartmouth tied up the score as John Mansfield walked, John Stoughton singled him to third and Bill Beagle doubled to score Mansfield. Then shortstop George Becker doubled to send Stoughton and Mansfield home. Pitcher Bob Feltman, who relieved starter Ron Judson, continued to hold the Cadets scoreless until the tenth inning when Army right fielder Steve Ordway blasted one of Feltman's offerings into deep left centerfield between Beagle and Mansfield for a home run and the ball game. Coming after Ivy defeats by Harvard and Cornell, the Army game was disheartening to say the least.

Only one Eastern League game - with Yale - remains on the schedule and Dartmouth seems destined to wind up in fifth or sixth place in the league this spring, but with a good chance to improve this showing by a wide margin next year.

A close play at the plate in Dartmouth's 11-5 victory ewer Navy