Tad evidently noticed the look of inquiry Jeff shot at them, for he smiled and spoke.
“We’re going over to see how wet the ground is. If the sun has dried the diamond out sufficiently Mr. Rice says he will call for outdoor practice beginning this afternoon.”
“Oh, boy, that will be swell,” exclaimed Jeff, delighted with the prospects.
He hurried on to his classes then, eager to spread the glad possibilities, and for the rest of the morning each time he and Wade and several other baseball enthusiasts passed the bulletin board in the hall they looked eagerly for the posting of a new notice there.
And at the end of the last period that morning they were not disappointed. There it was in big letters.
“All out for baseball! Squad and new candidates will report for practice at 3 o’clock. North field.”
CHAPTER XVI
THE SCRUB TEAM
With the beginning of the outdoor season baseball practice at Pennington took on an entirely different atmosphere. In the first place the squad was increased to more than twice its regular size with the first day of the season. To be sure it began to dwindle almost immediately for many of the new candidates discovered that they were hopelessly outclassed by the rest of the men, or else many of them who had just come out to “fool around” with the squad soon realized that they were in the way of better players and “cluttering up the field,” as Mr. Rice good-naturedly put it, so one by one they dropped out of the practice and found more pleasure in acting as spectators than in romping around the field.
So, by the third day of the outdoor work, the squad had again been reduced by men dropping out, until there remained about thirty players; enough to compose three teams with a couple of substitutes to spare.