Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 140, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 June 1910 — WRENS LOST SPIRITED BALL GAME SUNDAY P. M. [ARTICLE]

WRENS LOST SPIRITED BALL GAME SUNDAY P. M.

St Joe Had Shade the Best of a Very Good Contest and Won by Score Of Two to One. About two hundred people saw tlm Wrens play a very good ball game with St. Joe at Riverside Sunday afternoon, and while the Wrens drew the short end of a 2 to 1 score the contest was marked with a sufflcicient number of good plays to make it quite pleasing from the spectators’ standpoint and the crowd hung on until there were two down in the ninth inning and the defeat of the birds seemed positive. Kevin arrived in the morning, but Ryan was minus, and the little infielder brought the word that Ryan had gone to the west end team for a season try-out. The Wrens would have been up against it, had it not been for availibility of Sponhauer, a religious student from the college, who put up a gilt edged pitching game and worked with McLain like a veteran to defeat his college mates. He struck out eleven players and had the Wrens’ outfield been up to the requirements, would have won the game, and the college might easily have been shut out, had one or two misplays not happened. . The Wrens faced Hassar and McGurren, and ten of them struck out, while they got but 4 hits. They might have added another score but for a little dumb base running. The Wrens had one or two men in uniform who didn’t look good to the rooters and there was a sigh of distress when they stepped up to the plate and another sigh when they chopped awkwardly at everything offered and then went back and hung their legs over the bench. It is sure that the Wrens will have to get a few more players and teach them how to bat before they can expect to get away with many games. McLain got a good swing on a ball that cut the center of the plate in the Bth and it looked to be good for two or three bases, but Carmody, the right fielder for the college, judged the ball well, ran back with it, dived into the air and picked the sphere out just as “Father” was rounding the first corner. It was a circus catch and put the birds down and out. The Collegians got 7 hits, Nageleisen making 3 of them, and batting out a two bagger that brought in a run. The visitors scored in the 3rd and the Bth and the Wrens in the 3rd, the latter making their run when with two down, Hassar passed Kevin, hit Jensen and McLain and then passed Sponhauer, forcing in Kevin. With the bases filled up, Wilcox was a victim of the four-three route and the side was retired. There was a good crowd of Wren rooters and some friendly tilts of repartee with college rooters, showing the most friendly athletic relations now maintained between the college and the town. The Wren partisans were prepared to do a lot of cheering if they won, but they were quiet and the collegians took victory modestly. They expected it and got just what they were looking for. Wadena next Sunday.