"Ed Kerr," spoke Holly promptly. "He knows the game from A to Z."
"I thought he was going to play," came quickly from Tom. "We need him on the nine."
"He isn't going to play this season," went on Holly. "I heard him say so. He wants to save himself for football, and he says he can't risk going in for both. He'd make a good manager."
"Yes, but did you hear the latest?" asked Snail Looper, gliding along, almost like the reptile he was christened after.
"There's talk of Ford Fenton for manager," went on Snail.
"What, Ford!" cried Tom. "He'd be giving us nothing all the while but 'my uncle says this' and 'my uncle used to do it that way'! No Ford for mine, though I like the chap fairly well."
"Same here," agreed Phil. "We can stand him, but not his uncle," for, be it known, Ford Fenton, one of the sophomore students, was the nephew of a man who had been a celebrated coach at Randall in the years gone by. Ford believed in keeping his memory green, and on every possible, and some impossible, occasions he would preface his remarks with "My Uncle says" and then go on and tell something. It got on the nerves of his fellows, and they "rigged" him unmercifully about it, but Fenton could not seem to take the hint. His uncle was a source of pride to him, but it is doubtful if the former coach knew how his reputation suffered at the hands of his indiscrete youthful relative.
"Who told you Fenton had a chance for manager?" asked Sid Henderson.
"Bascome, the freshman?" Phil wanted to know, and Snail Looper nodded.
"Guess he didn't get all the hazing that was coming to him last fall," remarked Tom. "We'll have to tackle him again. Kerr is the only logical candidate for manager, if he isn't going to play."
"That's right," came in a chorus, as the lads kept on toward the diamond.
Tom was doing some hard thinking. It was a new responsibility for him--to run the team--and he wanted a manager on whom he could depend. If there was a contest over the place, as seemed likely from what Snail Looper had said, it would mean perhaps a dividing of interests, and lack of support for the team. He did not like the prospect, but he knew better than to tell his worries to the players now. At present he wanted to get them into some kind of shape, after a winter of comparative idleness.