Varsity Nine Opens 5-Game Tour Tuesday

While most major league baseball team move northward next week in preparation for their season openers, the Varsity baseball team will be proceeding in a southerly direction, inaugurating the 1947 campaign with a five-game tour which opens at College Park, Maryland, on Tuesday. The University of Maryland, will be the party of the second part.

The five engagements, to be played in as many days, will feature a two-day stand at Annapolis on Wednesday and Thursday. With the Naval Academy furnishing the opposition, the first Eastern Intercollegiate League game of the season against Penn at Philadelphia on Friday, and a journey to West Point on Saturday, when Captain Glenn Davis and his Cadet playmates will entertain the Crimson.

Trip Starts Monday

Nineteen Varsity players, Coach Adolph Samborski, Manager Tom Connolly, and a trainer will begin the begin by bus on Monday morning.

Of all the early season problems facing Samborski at the moment, the most embarrassing has been the lack of outdoor practice. The squad's workout yesterday on chilly Soldiers Field was the first time the entire team performed anywhere except in the Stygian gloom of Briggs Cage. Some weeks ago, the coach allowed his outfield to get some pasturage, but yesterday's session was the first opportunity Varsity players have had to bat against a normal background, and to study the intricate gyrations a baseball can perform on natural turf.

Since no Crimson pitcher has had enough work as yet to be ready for a full nine-inning stint, Samborski will probably use two hurlers against Maryland. Bill Connolly and Jack Wallace. Both are right-handers.

The other eight members of the starting lineup seemed virtually certain yesterday afternoon. In their probable batting order, they are as follows:

Jack Forte, second base; Bill Caulfield, center field; Bill Fitz, first base; Nick Rodis, right field; Walt Coulson, left field; Saul Mariaschin, shortstop; John Coppinger, third base; Bill Hamlen. catcher.

Other members of the Varsity entourage include Paul Fulton and Mort Dunn, utility infielders; Len Lunder, a fourth outfielder; alternate catchers Bill Barron and Webb Durant, and four other pitchers, Brenden Reilly, Ira Godin, Raiph Hymans, and Barry Turner. Turner is the squad's only left-handed twirler.

Although most of the positions on the squad have been held solidly for more than a week, Mariaschin is a latecomer, and was named as first-string shortstop only yesterday. The Varsity basketball captain has been practicing with the team for a week.

Of the squads to be met by the Varsity, both Maryland and Navy have been outdoors for longer periods than the Crimson, and the College Park squad has already opened its season with a 9 to 3 victory over Drexel on Thursday. The Middies, who play their first game on Saturday against Vermont, boast a seasoned pitcher in right-hander Ron Burton. Little is known about Penn or Army, although the Cadets are captained by outfielder Glenn Davis, he of stage, screen, and gridiron