The Portland daily press., 1899-04-28
Defeated By Bates College Nine Six
To Three.
Tossers Make Fairly
Good Impression.
Remarks in General Way About
the New Men.

. At little after half past two yesterday,
at the Forest avenue ball grounds the
Young men from Bates college marched
into the field. Duke" Kilfedder, with
bat In hand. strolled to the plate, Umpire
Hassett rolled a new white ball out
along the sun and winddried earth.
"play ball." he said, and Portland had
taken up the great national game where
a ieft 1t year ago last Fourth OF July,
Of lamsnted memory.
That the people are glad the long recess
was over, was pretty evident from the
way they dropped their quarters into the
till Of Treasurer SWEET and crowded In
side the old enclosure. 1t was an ideal
day for base ball, trifie, but only
triae, cool, the skies clear and bright,
and no suspicious of those heart-breaking
showers of '97 lurking about. And the
game was worthy the day, too.
We Portlands didn't beat as we would
have loved TO have done, but the contest
was prettily played from start to finish
and there was no time when John
Smiths collection might not have won
Enough of the local players arrived to
make a nine though the pitchers had to
90 into the field. OF course 1t was good
deal of patched up team, of men who
had never played together before, and as
to what they can or they can't, the
game afforded little opportunity to
Judge. There were no brilliant plays on
do in ha
field by both collegians and profession
ais. Love, the new first bsseman, who is
a left-hander, felded his position well
and led the batting for the home ieam.
though he didn't have to break any bats
to do that trick. TofS caught few
innings and was then succeeded by Frank
Libby, an old stats college player, whose
home is in Portland. We like lott de-
cldedly. for one reason, perhaps, that he
stands behind the plate for all the world
Ike lin Donahue who used to desport
in New England league fields and Is now
Chicagoan and a big Lacquer. The
phiIadelphian hit the ball hard, though
he was so unfortunate as to locate it in
the plot occupied by Nathan Pulsifer,
Noblit, whom we have been sparring
over with Walter Durham for three
weeks. failed to distinguish himself eth
er at the bat or in the field, but We are
looking for nice things from him by
and by. OF the pitchers, Miller made de-
cidedly the best impression both In the
box and In the field. He made q beauti
f,,1 Ct0 xuha no ypla
base and acted we'll in the box. Mcleod,
who tried 1t first, appeared to have speed
and curves but he was a bad marksman,
IA fault not unusualsat the opening of the
season "Giant" Conroy was out in
uniform, too lie went into the box in
the fourth inning amid great applause
from very friendly contingent out
Fear the score board. Bates earned
run off him in the fifth, but outside of
that he was not easy to find. Clark
has one of our six hits to his credit, and
lelded his position fairly we'll
John Smith assisted III the only double
play of the game, cutting off Pulsifer
ut the plate by splendid throw from
right field. Kilfedder did not have great
opportunities to distinguish himself but
handled himself we'll in the practice
There, guess have said something
nice about each one Of the young men
whom we have hired TO amuse us this
summer. and trust that / will have lots
of chances to bestow more bouquets up
on them as the season progresses.
Pulsifer's beautiful work in centre
field was the feature Of the game for
Bates. Quinn did not make his mark
rs fielder, but he did ''swat" the ball
powerful hard. Purinton, the Bates
catcher. did splendid work behind the
plate.
The team is weak at first and decidedly
weak in left field, to judge by yesterdays
glme. The young men all have par
icularly vicious way of laying the wagon
tongue to the ball. which ought to win
them games.
Now. perhaps, you would like to know
why Portland lost and why Mr. Bates
people won. It's no secret 1t is simply
that for some reason or other our hired
men couldn't lind the balls young Mr.
Hussey was throwing over the plate and
thereabouts. This young man appeared
a great deal like pitcher He has good
control and an assortment of curves
which he can Use to great advantage,
Once or twice when he got into tight
place he pulled out like veteran In
the second, for instance, with three men