University of Vermont - Ariel Yearbook (Burlington, VT)

Page 18 text:

THE ARIEL, 1908 17 In 1892 the first of the long southern trips was taken during the Easter recess, and these early spring trips were continued for a few years, the team going as far south as North Carolina. These trips were successful both in number of games won and in paying expenses, but have been discontinued for various reasons. The opening game of the first Southern trip is remarkable from the fact that although the team had had no chance to play out of doors, and no cage except a room with a low ceiling and less than 60 feet long for indoor practice, we were able to shut out our opponents CFordham Collegej in an crrarlcss game. Upon this trip the only games lost were those with the Wfashington and Philadelphia League teams, while we defeated the University of Virginia and the Georgetown College teams. Another example of good 'ball playing under difficulties was seen on the spring trip in '93. The team travelled all night without sleepers from Char- lottesville, Va., to Raleigh, N. C.. and defeated the University of North Carolina that afternoon. The next day. after a short railroad run to Chapel Hill, N. C., they again defeated the same team in the rain, and after changing their wet ball suits in the baggage car they rode all night without sleepers, on account of the necessity of changing cars frequently, and defeated VVashington and Lee Uni- versity the next afternoon. Again they took the train at midnight Qthis time each man having half a berth il, reached Philadelphia at noon, and literally knocked three University of Pennsylvania pitchers out of the box that afternoon, making 24 hits with a total of 41. Such a trip demands that men be in very good physical condition. The success of the team during those four C90-'93j years, aside from the maintenance of pretty strict training, was due to our having four unusually good pitchers CAbbey, 0iConnor, Pond and Cookej and the fact that batting was prac- ticed fully as much as fielding, until the team became a very hard-hitting one. Dur- ing these years much was said about professionalism in this University by repre- sentatives of other colleges, and while this criticism was to some degree just, still I know positively that other colleges were more blameworthy in the matter than we were, as can be proved by l:l1'l2ll1Cl3.l offers to many of our players -to go to other colleges, which at the same time were pretending to be entirely free from professionalism, and were criticising us. The collegiate standing of the mem- bers of the teams from '90-,93 is well proven by the fact that all but three of the members of those teams took their degrees, and many of those baseball men have now risen high in their chosen callings.

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16 THE ARIEL, 1908 young man with no outside instruction could not only develop himself into a major league player, but practically teach a college the game of baseball. I do not mean that Mr. Abbey was the best pitcher or the greatest ball player whom we ever had here, but I do insist that to his genius is due the development of baseball in the University, so that in two or three years we rose from a position very near the bottom of the list of American colleges in baseball to one very near the top. To some it may be interesting to know that in this year the first catcher's mitt ever seen in Vermont was ordered for the team, and when found too light, was turned over to the first baseman and a heavier mitt procured for the catcher. Before this the catcher had worn a long-fingered glove on his left hand and frequently a fmgerless glove on his right. In this year also came the last great war between the medical and academical students, precipitated by the question as to which department should have the managership of the baseball team. The matter was decided by a game of ball between teams from the two departments, won by the Academics C19-45, and since that day the manager has always been elected from the academical depart- ment. T he feeling between the two departments was very high all that year, and in a scrap between them on the night of a game with Dartmouth, at which the Medics had loudly supported the visiting team, some of the Dartmouth men were mistaken for Medics and the episode was long laid up against us by our friends from New I-Iampshire, who could not be made to realize that the matter was purely a family affairn and that since they were supporting the Medics by their presence and in other ways, the Academics could hardly be expected to distinguish them in the dark, and when handling such uncertain missiles as eggs. Ever since that year the best of good feeling has existed between the depart- ments. In the summer of 1890 the business men of Burlington decided to keep the Varsity team, with a few changes, as a summer team, and this was done for three successive years, with the result that the team work and general ball playing of the Varsity improved very greatly. The teams that weimet included most of the best New England college playersg for at that time no objection was made to Hsummer ball in any of the colleges so far as known. This summer playing taught the team the game of baseball most thoroughly, made us acquainted with the athletes of other colleges and their methods, and since the Burlington team was practically the Varsity team, we attracted much good baseball material to the University.

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18 THE ARIEL, 1908 Tlllbi Training of william BY Fiuznnrucic TUPPER, JR. OT long enough ago to be called once on a time, Anson, Harris and I directed with academic dignity and decorum a Summer School for Guides in the Temagami Forest of Qntario, boasting only one pupil on our rolls. The Hudson Bay Store at Haileybury was the enrolling office. To us talking volubly with our outiitter of boots, beans and birchbark, entered Vlfilliam, our future companion in boat and bush. VVith holiday optimism we had awaited some keen-eyed Deerslayer, some Uncas or Chingacheook, tall and straight as a pine-our extensive knowledge of the woods was derived chiefly through Fenimore Cooper. Alas for great expecta- tions! lfVilliam,s slight form recalled not the pine of our hopes, but the light quivering aspenfy No leather stocking graced his nether limbsg but the con- cavo-convexity of their curve was offset by slack and -beltless knickerbockers and drooping garterless hose. His smile was as pathetically futile as his hat- band and cravat, whose gaiety was now only a faded memory. In him con- quering and conquered races had met without malice, and washed out in the strong liquor beloved of both all substance of hate or wrong, leaving only this harmless hybrid as an aftermath. I had read in a German story of a man without a shadow: here was a shadow without a man. The best snap-shot of Wfilliam kodaked on my memory now was granted to me an hour later, while awaiting at the station the belated train that was to bear us and our fortunes to Lachford, the starting point of our water-journey. As usual at such times, all things were in storm and stress. A gay wedding-party was unintentionally thwarting by its merry and noisy ubiquity our efforts to End and forward packs and canoes. In the middle of a confusion increased by the trainis arrival, the same question sprang from us all: lVhere is Vifilliam ? No sooner asked than answered. Across a broad field dotted with blackened tree-stumps he came-rapidly and with infinite variety of step. The acre was his chess-board, and it was his right, nay his bounden duty, to execute in turn the moves of every piece Between the charred obstacles he described with jerky impatience the rectangle of the knight, the lateral of the castle, the diagonal