Nine, Weak on Mound, Girds for Spring Trip

About the time the major league teams are finishing their spring training and getting ready to head north, Harvard leaves Soldiers Field for a week's visit to sundry southern baseball diamonds. This is the annual spring trip which every year strikes fear into the hearts of Crimson ball players and coaches.

Harvard is naturally at a disadvantage when it journeys below the Mason-Dixon line. The teams it meets will have been practicing -- outdoors -- for at least a month longer than the Crimson has been able to work, despite the fact that the weather man has been smiling on Coach Stuffy McInnis all week.

Eighteen Players Making Trip

The raw winds which still sweep across the diamond have not helped loosen up tight pitching muscles, while the outfielders are just beginning to get the range on their throws and infielders are still getting used to the outdoor turf after weeks of work in Briggs Cage.

Eighteen players, accompanied by their coach, a trainer, tow managers, and one publicity director, will make the southern junket. The men who will tackle the six-games-in-six-days schedule include pitchers Ira Godin, Ralph Hymans, Roy Meears, and Barry Turner; catchers Cliff Crosby and Web Durant; infielders Walt Coulson, Harry Cavanaugh, Mort Dunn, Ernie Mannino; and outfielders John Caulfield, Steve Howe, Hal Moffie, Dick Kobusch, Gordy Ellis, and Kevin Reilly.

Wanted: Pitchers

McInnis will not name the two other players who are making the trip until later today or tomorrow. One of them will definitely be a pitcher, and both may be. Other pitchers, one or two of whom will augment the four-man staff McInnis has already announced, include Herb Merser, who saw a little varsity relief work last spring; Landon Clay ace Jayvee hurler in 1948; Bill Bennett, and Gibby Warron.

What Stuffy needs more than anything else -- except possibly more time -- is pitchers. Godin, the veteran righthander from Ohio, seems headed for a great season in his third year of varsity ball. He did some pitching for the Great Lakes nine which Bobby Feller managed, although Denny Galehouse did most of the hurling.

Last year, in 19 innings of Ivy League pitching, Godin gave up only two earned runs and ten hits while striking out 20 batter. He finished the season with a brilliant four-hit 2 to 0 shutout of of Yale, beating the Elis' outstanding pitcher, Frank Quinn. Godin will start the 1949 campaign at Virginia on Monday and will work the Crimson's first League game against Navy on Saturday. After that, he will get the call for most of the team's League contests.

Howe, Moffie In Outfield

However, after Godin, McInnis' mound staff lacks depth. Hymans and Tunner, a left-hander, saw only limited action last spring. Meears was the leading pitcher on last year's ill-fated freshman squad and did some heroic work, but in general the staff 'lacks deception and control except when Godin is on the mound.

McInnis will be able to tell more about his team when it returns from the hinter lands, where he will be happy to come away with three victories. Since the squad moved outdoors, he has been concentrating on hitting, infield drills, and outfield throw-ins. In addition, he has been working out infield plays and trying to pick his most potent combination.

As things stand now, the infield will probably line up with Crosby behind the plate and Mannino, Dunn, Cavanaugh, and Coulson--from left to right. The outfield--in the same order--is tentatively Howe, Moffie, and Caulfield.

McInnis will stick with the same infield during the trip but will try out all his outfielders.