According to baseball lore, the best way to estimate the quality of a team before the sason begins is to look for strength "up the middle." Dolph Samborski will be only too happy if that tradition holds true for his freshman baseball team which opens its campaign at home tomorrow against the M.I.T Yearlings.

Prefacing his remarks with the traditional, "It's too early to tell," Samborski nevertheless waxed optimistic about the "up the middle" strength of his 1950 Yardlings. Tomorrow's team will start with Chuck Wade catching the right-hander Bob Ward. Backing them up will be the smooth-working combination of second baseman John Canepa and shortstop Walt Greeley while little Bob Smith will be in centerfield.

In stressing the early-season promise of his "up the middle" combination, Samborski was quick to add that he was not disparaging the rest of his starting lineup. "Actually, he said, "the club promises to be one of the best-balanced we've had in several seasons."

Other starters tomorrow include Jim O'Brien, first base, George Chase, third, Russ Johnson, left field, and John Collins, right field. Johnson, a right-handed batter, will hit clean-up.

The battle for first and third base positions is still wide open according to Samborski, with left-handed Win Knowlton pressing O'Brien at first and Hank McCusker close behind Chase. Lou Arnow in also conceded a good chance to break into the starting outfield combination.

Behind Ward in the pitching department in no particular order are Scott Ricketson, Luke Lockwood, Steve Stamatopulos, Fred Rhinelander, and Fred Vonderlage. In the event that the weather is too cold for Ward to go the route tomorrow (or if M.I.T proves un-cooperative), Ricketson will probably finish up.

M.I.T a Guess

Samborski admits he knows little about the type of opposition the Engineers will provide. "I haven't heard a thing about them," he said, "but I don't imagine they can be too far along since they have no cage in which to work out before the weather breaks."

Governor Dummer Academy, which plays host to the freshmen Friday afternoon, is another story. Samborski knows quite a bit about Dummer, because his son, Paul, is the Academy's star pitcher.