I had little time for such reflections, however, for the others were already on the field, so I hurriedly dressed myself and went out on the diamond, where the new grass lay as smooth and evenly trimmed as velvet. During the preliminary competition the manner in which we practised was as follows: The competitors were divided into two companies――those who were competing for positions in the infield, and those who were competing for positions in the outfield. The former stood in a group and received each in turn a ground ball batted by some one who stood about a hundred feet distant from them. Beside this batter stood a competitor for first base position, with his gloves on, who caught the ball as it was sharply returned to him by the others. The practice would thus progress with the regularity of clockwork. Each man in his turn would step forward, receive the ground ball struck by the batter, return it quickly to the competitor for first base who stood beside the batter, and then give place to the next man. The practice of the outfielders was conducted at another part of the field. The man stood out at a considerable distance from a batter who struck balls high into the air in various directions. Here, as in the infield, the competitors took turn, and returned the ball at once with all their force to a catcher who stood beside the batter. Meanwhile, on the diamond, Dick Palmer and I held our positions as catcher and pitcher respectively, while all the men came up in groups of four and took turns in batting. This served as practice for Dick and myself, and also enabled us to judge of the batting abilities of the various men. Ray Wendell moved about from one part of the field to the other, watching the men carefully, in order that he might arrive at a fair judgment of their respective merits. This sort of work constituted our daily practice until the nine was chosen, which choice usually took place just before the Easter vacation. The competition this year was, from the first, sharp and close, for there were many positions to be filled, and the men were for the most part quite evenly matched. As the days passed, however, the competition narrowed down somewhat. A few dropped out, and some developed more rapidly than others, so that by Saturday it would not have been so difficult a task to pick out the likely new members of the nine.