NOT A "MID-SEASON SLUMP."

Recent baseball scores, taken by themselves, would seem to indicate that the University baseball team is having a slump. This is not true, or is true only to the extent that the team is not playing quite the same game as in the earlier part of the season. The falling off is not to be accounted for by the over-training, over-confidence, or general listlessness which characterize the ordinary slump. It is due rather to the obstacles which have beset the team since the second Princeton game. First, there are the injuries to Briggs and MacLaughlin, which, however good the substitutes, cannot fail to have a bad psychological effect on the team. Next in importance is the fact that three out of the seven scheduled games have had to be cancelled; throughout the season the team has been handicapped in meeting other teams with longer schedules, a disadvantage increased in proportion as games are cancelled. Finally, baseball training is much more subject to temperament than the dogged development in other sports, notably football; it is in this way that the team has shown the effects of long trips.

The four defeats experienced so far this season are easily accounted for. One was brought on by two bad pitchers' innings, taken advantage of by the opposing team in a terrific batting rally. The Brown game was the result of being unable to hit a pitcher of professional effectiveness, while our pitchers faced a batter whose hits were responsible for four out of the five runs in the two games. The second Cornell game was lost three times, twice by errors which come to the best players once in so often.

Present indications are that there is nothing to hinder the team's rapid development. The pitchers are at their best, and the infield should become settled this week. Yale is expected to be the hardest-hitting team seen on Soldiers Field this year, but if the infield gets back the speed and accuracy it is capable of, there is no reason why we should not win, always provided we can hit. In that connection all that can be said is, the batting is appreciably stronger than last year's.