Baseball Team Opens Season On Southern Trip This Week

With only four days of outdoor practice behind them, members of the varsity baseball team will emerge from the miasma of Briggs Cage tomorrow to head south for a three-game exhibition schedule next week.

About two dozen players will start this bus tour of the Southern circuit; when they return final outs will be made to reduce the team to 20 men. Games with Fort Lee, the University of Virginia, and Quantico will be the final testing ground before the season opener with M.I.T. on April 13.

The Crimson plays at Fort Lee on Monday, at Charlottesville on Tuesday, and will wind up its Virginia jaunt at Quantico on Thursday.

Despite the less of two starting pitchers from last year, the team seems least likely to run into trouble with its pitching staff. Bob Ward is gone, but Andy Ward inactive part of last season for disciplinary reasons--seems capable of filling the hole his namesake left. Two other possible starters who might make up for the loss of Pat Groper are John Arnold and Ken Rossano. All three are right-handers.

Other Pitchers

Other possibilities for the permanent pitching roster include John Cooke, Jim Fitzgibbons, Ned Felton, and Bill Chauncey. Chauncey may alternate between the mound and the outfield, where he won his letter last season.

A possible starting infield for the Fort Leo game would find sophomores John Maher at first and Art Noyes at second, and seniors Ray Maesaka and Ed Krinsky at third base and shortstop. With Dick Clasby staying home from the trip to rest after a recent illness, George McDonald may start behind the plate.

But Coach Stuffy McInnis will probably keep juggling his infield for the three games, constantly looking for the right combination. In making his different alignments, McInnis can work with Jim Kiggen at first, Dick Hoffman at second and Jim Rahal at third.

Besides MacDonald, catchers Bing Crosby and Bill Hickey will be on the trip. Crosby caught last spring for the freshmen.

The team is strongest of all in the outfield, where two lettermen are sure to start--Captain Dick Scheer at center and Don Butters in right field. Sophomore Bill Cleary will probably hold down the left field position. Also a possible outfielder is senior George Anderson, who played last year on the jayvees.