Homer or Single? Sport Writers Disagree on Todd's Drive in Recent Game; "He Should Have Stopped It," General Opinion

Was Todd's drive in the seventh inning of the Middlebury game a home run or a single? There was a wide difference of opinion in yesterday's sporting columns. The Herald and the Globe called it a home run, giving the Sophomore center-fielder two circuit clouts for the game and four for the season. The Post and the Advertiser ruled it a single, charging the Middlebury center fielder with an error in letting the ball go through him. The CRIMSON, using the official score kept by the Harvard management, took the second stand.

A CRIMSON reporter asked Coach Slattery his opinion yesterday afternoon, and the latter said emphatically. "It was most decidedly a home run. No one could have stopped it." Coach Morey of Middlebury, reached by telephone at the Copley Square Hotel, where his team is staging, hestitated to express himself definitely, but he conceded that since it was a very hard hit ball and it bounced badly for center fielder Hastings, it might better be judged a home run. Stanley Wood ward, the Herald reporter, concurred in this belief.

Peter Kelley of the Advertiser and Roger Birtwell of the Post took the other view. Mr. Kelley said, "To be sure it was a hard hit ball, but it bounded squarely into the center fielder's hands and reasonably clean fielding would have stopped it. I don't claim to be an authority, but I've seen a lot of baseball, and I certainly would call it an error." Mr. Kelley was formerly secretary of the Boston Braves and is a member of the Baseball Writers Association.

Mr. Birtwell was even more emphatic "it was unquestionably not a home run," he said, "but a perfectly routine error. I am as interested as any one in seeing Todd make a good record, but personalities and prejudice are out of place in baseball scoring."

The question is entirely one of the scorer's judgement, and since the official scorer recorded it as a single and an error it will so stand in the official records, regardless of conflicting opinions.