On the whole the boys decided that if the team kept on as they had been—working together like a machine—and if they could avoid a slump, they would have just as good a chance to win as the other fellows, and perhaps a little better. They were the champions and had been for years; and this would give them a slight advantage.
So they worked a little harder in practice, trying to perfect themselves more and more in their signal and other inside work, and every man on the team pledged himself again and again to Hughie to try a little more earnestly than he had before, if that were possible, for the honor and glory of the university. And this helped them to keep from getting nervous when they thought of these reports of Church’s team at Jefferson.
[CHAPTER XV]
THE “LOWELL REPORTER”
The Lowell Reporter was the college paper of the University. It appeared once a week and in it was printed all the news of the college world, and announcements of various kinds. The advertising columns furnished an opportunity for a couple of young hustlers to earn enough money soliciting advertisements to keep them in school.
The paper was edited entirely by the students under the watchful eye of the faculty and especially of Professor Bennett, assistant teacher of English and of many years’ experience as a newspaper writer and editor. He also had under his direct supervision a small class in journalism, a department which had but recently been founded. The University let the students’ committee publish the paper themselves, i. e., to get it ready and then just before being printed, Professor Bennett would go over the copy in order to be sure that nothing contrary to the policy of the University was published and once in a while to curb the enthusiasm of this or that writer, when he allowed his imagination to prepare any article that was not in keeping with the dignity of the institution.
Timothy Murnin, a young Irish lad of American parentage, was one of the two fellows who kept themselves in college by hustling for advertisements for the Reporter. Timothy’s one ambition was to be the owner and editor of a big city newspaper, and his job of hustling for advertisements was the best start he could have made in that direction if he only knew it.
Besides attending to his studies and getting most of the advertisements for the Reporter, Tim added to his many duties, by request of the student body, the job of reporting all the sporting events of the college. His many duties didn’t give him a chance to indulge in any of the games himself, but he had a wonderful knowledge of all the sports, football, baseball, basketball, track work and everything. In baseball he was particularly fit. Like all good healthy boys in this country he loved the great American game of Baseball. He loved it for the same reason that millions of others loved it—its squareness and thrills.
He knew the game from “soup to nuts,” as he would say in talking about the ability of this or that great player. He could give you offhand the records of all the great college teams in the country for twenty years back and the individual fitness of almost every player. He had them all on his finger tips, and his reports of the games at college were filled with items showing that this first baseman acted like old Pop Anderson, yonder pitcher reminded him of Russell, or some young catcher threw down to second like Charley Burnett, or that so and so stood up to the bat like old Dan Brewers or King Kelly.