Baseball

The Dartmouth baseball team has been hampered by a lack of hitting power and a tendency to commit errors at crucial times. Since last report the Indians have lost to Princeton 4-0, Yale 1-0, Cornell 5-0, Holy Cross 9-5, Army 2-0, Holy Cross 12-5, Columbia 7-6, Williams 4-1, and to Penn 1-0. The Indians defeated Harvard 7-6 and Brown 3-1.

Dartmouth, as we said, has been very weak at the plate with only one player, sophomore Dick Portland, a reserve outfielder, hitting over .300. The pitching has been only fair with Dick Van Riper and Schach Van Steenberg carrying the bulk of the load. Costly errors in both the infield and outfield have hurt, and the Indians also have lost some very tight games which could have gone either way.

Typical was the most recent game with Penn. Dick Van Riper turned in a fine pitching performance and held the Quakers scoreless for ten innings. However, Dartmouth could not score either. In the nth inning the Quakers' Dick Ross singled and then Vince Ketv lofted a long hit to left centerfield which fell for a triple and Ross scored the winning run.

The same thing happened against Army when Van Steenberg went eleven innings but gave up a walk and then had a home run blasted over the left field fence to give the Cadets a 2-0 win.

In the 4-1 loss to Williams, the Indians allowed three unearned runs, and Columbia scored seven runs in the seventh inning against Dartmouth with four walks and two errors contributing, as they edged Dartmouth 7-6.

Princeton's 1-0 victory over the Big Green in the ninth inning came as the partial result of a fielding lapse, and only in the Harvard game, when the Crimson made some errors and then permitted a Dartmouth man to steal home, did the Indians begin to look like a real ball club.

As the games went along Coach Bob Shawkey several times juggled his lineup, but to no avail, and in the most recent game he returned to the lineup which has played in most of the contests to date. This lineup has Malcolm Brown behind the plate, Lou Pfeifle at first base, Larry Blades at second, Captain George Becker at shortstop, John Otis at third base. Outfielders Ralph Manuel, John Chapman and Bill Beagle, with Jerry Thompson and Don Klages as alternates, complete the Big Green lineup.

In the pitching department, Dick Van Riper with a 2-2 record and an earned run average of 2.07 leads, with Shach Van Steenberg next. Pete Pullen, Les Scammon, Langdon Harris and Don Rosenthal have been other Big Green hurlers who have seen the most action.

In summary, it is fair to say that this has not been a strong Dartmouth baseball team, but it ought to be added that the abbreviated spring practice sessions and generally bad weather have prevented the team from really getting started.