The varsity baseball team yesterday started a fall practice session, the first in the history of the sport at the College. The pre-season exercises in Briggs Cage are informal and voluntary.

Varsity baseball coach Norm Shepard, who is also mentor of junior varsity football, is not able to attend the autumn practice, but captain Al Martin will lead the candidates in daily sessions.

Shepard said last night that although fall baseball is new to the College, most of the other teams in the Crimson's league--the Eastern Intercollegiate Baseball League--allow early practice. He said that Navy, Columbia, and Yale, among others, hold formal fall baseball practice.

Although the Ivy League is quite strict in forbidding spring football practice, the Eastern League--composed of the Ivy teams plus Army and Navy--has no regulations governing early practice, according to Shepard.

About 30 or 40 prospective ball players signed up at a meeting Shepard called Tuesday night, but he counted only about 15 at the Cage yesterday afternoon.