The Harvard-Holy Cross baseball rivalry has been one of the marvels of intercollegiate athletics. Year after year Holy Cross has turned out nines that have merited the scrutiny of major league scouts, nines that on paper should have beaten Harvard by a dozen runs. Year after year the Crimson playing a little better than its best, has battled the Purple on even terms, usually losing in the end, but always in the running until the last man has been put out.

This afternoon at 4 o'clock the two teams meet again on Soldiers Field with the setting the same as in the past. An unbeaten Holy Cross team with eight decisive victories to its credit will encounter a Harvard nine at its best no more than fair. Owen Carroll, the best pitcher in college baseball, is ready to take the mound. The experts hesitate, however, to predict the Holy Cross landslide that comparative scores presage for they cannot but wonder if history will repeat itself. Will Harvard rise to the occasion this afternoon as it has in the past and play inspired baseball? That is the question that will fill the Soldiers Field stands for the first time this spring.

Harvard Has Waited Since 1920

Last year Carroll bested Young in two airtight pitching duels, 1 to 0 and 2 to 1, in which the Crimson hurler, though he pitched the best games of his career, was not a match for his brilliant rival. In 1922 two 2 to 1 games went to the Purple. The game at Worcester was won by Carroll after 15 innings of what newspapermen united in dubbing "the best baseball ever played on a college diamond." Harvard's last victory came in 1920 when a home run by first baseman Jones brought a 1 to 0 triumph.

Seven of the nine Holy Cross starters are veterans of former victories over the University. McEntee, the New first-sacker, won his spurs last week by driving out the two three baggers that sent Princeton to its sole defeat of the season after 14 gruelling innings, Freeman the other newcomer, has approached the older men in batting power. Among the familiar faces are Riopel, football captain, already the recipient of an offer from the New York Giants; Captain Simendinger, for four years a stellar outfielder and hitter; and Gautreau, always a brilliant player, but by queer twists of fate the one man who has invariably played the stellar role in downing Harvard.

Carrell to Show His Wares

Carroll will undoubtedly pitch. Already under contract with the Detroit Tigers, he is good enough, experts agree, to step into the major leagues today and be a big winner. Against him today Coach Slattery will use either Spalding or Toulmin, probably the former. The Crimson pitchers have not yet shown enough ability to make Harvard supporters sanguine, but the hunch persists that Spalding or Toulmin may do the expected, as Young did last year and Goode two years ago, and check the Purple intake.