Page:The purple pennant (IA purplepennant00barb).pdf/157

Rh "fixed up a bit," and for some reason the marks left by the passage of the roller, plainly visible, failed to connect themselves with the story in that morning's paper. Perhaps the principal reason for this was that very few of the fellows read anything in the Reporter outside of the sporting page. The infield, and especially the base paths, was more level and smoother than it had ever been, and during practice that afternoon there were far fewer errors that could be laid to inequalities of the surface. To be sure, when Harry Bryan let a ball bound through his hands he promptly picked up a pebble and disgustedly tossed it away, but the excuse didn't carry the usual conviction.

Practice went well that afternoon. Fielding was cleaner and it really looked to Dick as though his charges were at last finding their batting eyes. Bryan, Cotner and Merrick all hit the ball hard in the four-inning contest with the practice team, the former getting two two-baggers in two turns at bat and Cotner connecting with one of Tom Nostrand's offerings for a three-base hit. The First Team had no trouble in winning the decision, the score being 5 to 1. Meanwhile, on the cinders the Track Team candidates were busy, and over on the Main Street side of the field, where the pits were located, the jumpers and weight-throwers were trying them-