“Hello, Mac! Think you’ll beat Weston to it this year?”
“I might,” was the cool reply.
The above were only a few of the many challenges, shouts, calls and greetings that were bandied from side to side as the students, who had been waiting long for this opportunity, crowded into the gymnasium.
It was the preliminary sifting and weeding out of the mass of material offered on the altar of baseball. At best but a small proportion of the candidates could hope to make the ’varsity, or even a class team, but this did not lessen the throng that crowded about the captain, manager and coaches, eagerly waiting for favorable comment.
“Well, we’re here!” exulted Jimmie Lee, who had, the night before, brought to Joe the good news that the ball season had at least started to open.
“Yes, we’re here,” agreed Joe.
“And what will happen to us?” asked Spike Poole. “It doesn’t look to me as if much would.”
“Oh, don’t fool yourself,” declared Jimmie, who, being very lively, had learned many of the ropes, and who, by reason of ferreting about, had secured much information. “The coaches aren’t going to let anything good get by ’em. Did you see Benson looking at me! Ahem! And I think I have Whitfield’s eye! Nothing like having nerve, is there? Joe, hold up your hand and wriggle it—they’re trying to see where you’re located,” and, with a laugh at his conceit, Jimmie shoved into the crowd trying to get nearer the centre of interest—to wit, where the old players who served as coaches were conferring with the captain.
The latter was Tom Hatfield, a Junior whose remarkable playing at short had won him much fame. Mr. William Benson and Mr. James Whitfield were two of the coaches. George Farley was the manager, and a short stocky man, with a genial Irish face, who answered to the name of Dick McLeary, was the well-liked trainer.
“Well, if I can make the outfield I suppose I ought to be satisfied,” spoke Jimmie Lee. “But I did want to get on a bag, or somewhere inside the diamond.”