Immediately this happened Mr. Rice and his assistant, and coach of the scrub teams, Mr. Clarkson, proceeded to organize a first team, a first scrub team and a second scrub team which amounted to a junior team, composed of the younger boys of the squad, and after that practice began in earnest.
Of course, the first team was picked entirely from among the sixteen players who had taken part in the indoor practice for the previous three weeks. Of the sixteen original players Coach Rice built up a team composed, first of all, of Tad Sloan, captain and catcher, long Lafe Gammage, last year’s first baseman still in his old position, Mickey Daily at second, Buck Hart short stop, Gould, last year’s second string man at third, Dave Gleason in right field, Jed Stafford center field and Dutch Hecht in left garden. Big George Dixon, the holdover pitcher from last year, was assigned as the first team pitcher. This aggregation was called the Penningtons.
The second, or scrub team, called the Penguins, was built up of the best material available of the remaining candidates. Al. Canner, the substitute catcher, was behind the bat catching for Honey Wiggins or Cy Gordon, both of them second string pitchers; Dick Runyon held down first, Cas Gorham played second, Brownie Davis made the short field, Jeff was picked to fill third, with Rabbit Warren at center field, Wade Grenville, Jeff’s roommate, in right field and Fat Daws holding down the job of left fielder.
Of course, all the fellows realized, and it was hardly necessary for Coach Rice to announce to them, that all the positions were temporarily filled, and it depended entirely upon the ability and the amount of baseball brains displayed whether the men would hold onto the jobs they were assigned to or whether they would move up to the first team or down to the second team.
As they had been selected, however, both teams were mighty good collections of baseball talent, and as it soon proved very evenly matched for skill and baseball brains. Of course, the first team had certain advantages because the fellows were generally older and a little more experienced in baseball playing, but that did not count for a great deal when all was said and done.
To be sure it was not the pleasantest thing possible for Jeff to be classed as a second string man, but he realized that Gould, being a scrub team man of the previous year had first call on the third base position.
“I’m going to give him a rub for the place though,” he assured himself secretly when the selection of teams had been announced and he found Gould in the position he coveted.
North Field provided two diamonds, one at the extreme north end and one at the south end, and the last named was considered the scrub team’s home grounds, while the big diamond at the north end was the home grounds of the first team. Every afternoon for the first week of the outdoor practice the two teams turned out upon their respective diamonds and proceeded to limber up in earnest. The first few days were devoted to throwing and batting practice as in the gymnasium, but in addition to this the coaches took the fellows for short jogs about the field to stretch their legs and develop their lung power.
They devoted some of this early work to correcting individual faults. Mr. Rice and Mr. Clarkson watched each player carefully, as he ran, fielded or took his turn at the bat, and whenever they saw any of the boys making errors or developing minor faults they were quick to take them aside and give them careful and painstaking drilling until such faults were corrected.