[CHAPTER V]
THE FIRST LINE-UP
“Well, what do you think of your freshman phenoms?”
It was Johnny Everson who was speaking. Johnny besides being the regular second baseman of the Varsity was the chum of Hughie Jenkins, the manager of the team and his chief adviser with Captain Larke. Johnny knew the game from top to bottom and across the middle. They called him “a little bunch of brains and nerves,” and he deserved the compliment.
He was small in size, but large in brains and many a game had been won for the college by his quick work at trying moments, to say nothing of the fact that he was largely responsible for the discovery and development of many of the plays which had come to be known as “inside baseball.” He had an aggressive chin which seemed to be always pointing forward, and his eye was as quick and accurate as a sharpshooter’s.
“We seem to have a good many gaps to fill and I guess we will find mostly yaps to fill them with,” he went on; “anyway that’s the way I feel to-night after looking over the unpromising material that we put through the stunts at the cage to-day.”
“I don’t feel discouraged. You can never tell, of course, on one trial, but watching some of those youngsters this afternoon made me think that with a little training some of them will make good,” said Hughie.
“Let’s go over the list and mark the fixtures we can count on, and then we can tell what we have to do to get a real nine together,” said Everson.