A Triple Sport Alliance.
A triple understanding in all branches of sport by Yale, Harvard, and Princeton is at hand. The signing of a formal agreement by the three for a series of nine games to settle the triple baseball championship and the continued conferences of the captains of the three elevens of the universities are surface indications of the movement that has been quietly in progress for several years, furthered by Yale, for at least a general understanding between the three in all branches of the sport.
In track athletics and rowing the triple entente is not in operation. Yale meets both her rivals on the track and would be glad for them to meet each other, but Harvard and Princeton have no arrangement for such contests. Princeton has not yet come into the Yale-Harvard annual rowing regatta on the Thames, but may do so at any time. Yale meets Princeton and Harvard both on the water annually, but there is no movement on the part of Princeton to arrange a dual-crew race with Harvard. Officials of the Princeton navy and athletic association have assured Yale rowing men that the Tigers were likely before long to come into the Yale-Harvard annual races at New London.
When the results of the series of informal football conferences between Yale, Harvard, and Princeton are announced, it is expected that progress toward a much more complete understanding of gridiron matters of mutual interest will be shown. The informal talks of Captains Wilson, of Yale; Mahan, of Harvard, and Glick, of Princeton, will be projected into the business of the general athletic committees of the three universities during the remainder of the school year.
The agreement for a definite series of nine baseball games has completed another project, suggested by Yale, similar to that proposed by Coach Frank Quinby, of the Eli baseball team, last year, which has resulted in a formal agreement of the three universities for the coaches of their baseball nines to remain off the player’s benches during a game for the purpose of proving the contests to be a genuine battle of the undergraduate players and captains.
The agreement for playing nine definite games, without regard to the results of the individual series between any two of the three university teams, is regarded as the most radical step that has been taken in college sport in the East this year. Yale, Harvard, and Princeton call their games, played against one another, their “championship” matches. There will be a genuine “champion” chosen this year for the first time among the three rivals, for the percentage leader in the series of nine games played will be the holder of a clean title to championship honors.
For years Yale, Harvard, and Princeton have played baseball without a decision as to championship honors. Last year, for instance, Yale defeated Harvard; Harvard easily beat Princeton, yet Princeton neatly trimmed Yale, leaving honors easy all around. Although each of the three old rivals may win three of the scheduled games of the series this year and a championship may be again impossible, chances are against any such outcome of the advent of the new triangular arrangement, the baseball triple entente of Yale, Harvard, and Princeton.