A colorful spectacle which has no parallel at Harvard, Yale's Derby Day, Saturday lived up to all tradition as Eli sports teams swept through to victory in almost every contest in which they participated to complete the already overflowing joy of the Eli fans.
It was a warm, balmy afternoon--for though it rained in the morning, the sun poked through the showers about noon and there wasn't another drop of rain until after the last crew race had been finished at sundown.
Everybody who watched the track team edge the Crimson or the nine upset Dartmouth poured out to Derby as the afternoon progressed. By trolley, train, or horse and buggy, dressed in bathing suits or top hats, most of the crowd went not to witness the races but just to be a part of the crowd, and forget all about President Dodd's admonition about over-indulgence.
But those who did care about the fortunes of old Eli's sports teams, and were not cheering just to be heard had ample cause to rejoice; and your Derby Day observer had good cause to be impressed, for both the baseball team and the crews he witnessed are due to run up against Harvard a little later.
Dartmouth's baseball team, with its record of seven league wins, was bound to get beaten sooner or later; but the manner in which the Big Blue turned the trick made one forget about the Hanover, and wonder whether or not the Commencement Day games aren't to be even tougher than the double-header with the Green.
The hitting of the Elis was good, and Ted Horton's pitching was effective to say the least. But the thing that impresses a Harvard sports writer was not the play but the fact there were 5000 people watching the game. To be sure, it was Derby Day; but the interest in college baseball is keener at Yale.
Out on the Housatoute, there were about ten people cheering for Harvard in the 150-pound regatta; it was a heart-breaker, and even the rabidest Eli cheerers had to admit it would have been nip and tuck at the finish except for those crabs.
Faith in the extreme short stroke as rowed by the Washington crews, which has been increasing each time there has been regatta on the Charles, got a slight blow in the big race of the day, as both the Elis and Princeton led Cornell's effortless-looking eight across the finish line.
The Tigers and the Blue looked less smooth in their style of rowing, but they put plenty behind their oars, and despite the fact that the Princeton shell checked noticeably in the long layback, it pulled away from Cornell in the crucial sprint to the line.
The Jayvees looked great as they left the Big Red way behind coming down the river, and if comparative results mean a thing, they would be a length or two better than Harvard's at the present time. As for a comparison between the Varsities, that is a thing that will never be answered for the two shells will clash over the four and not the two mile route when that race comes.
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