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Making the Nine

Chapter 2: PREFACE
By Albertus T. Dudley
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About This Book

Set at a New England preparatory academy, the story follows a circle of students whose lives revolve around athletics, especially the campus baseball nine, tracking their training, friendships, rivalries, setbacks, and moral growth. Episodes range from locker-room camaraderie and pranks to academic troubles, injuries, a burglary, a nocturnal mystery, and a major track meet, building toward a dramatic baseball climax inspired by a historic collegiate play. Throughout, the narrative emphasizes teamwork, sportsmanship, steady leadership, and coming-of-age lessons learned through training and contest.

PREFACE

The cordial welcome given to Following The Ball by boy readers and parents—severe critics both, though from very different standpoints—has led to the writing of this second story, in which baseball has a sufficiently important part to suggest the title.

The author’s purpose in each case has been to produce a readable story true to the life of a distinctly American school, true to athletics in their better spirit and character, and teaching—not preaching—a manly and reasonable ideal. If he has not succeeded in this, the failure can certainly not be charged to lack of experience with athletics or school life or the ways of boys.

Hearty acknowledgments for expert advice on the technicalities of baseball training and play are due to Dr. Edward H. Nichols of Boston, who, as player, head coach, and graduate adviser, has probably contributed more to Harvard victories on the diamond than any other one man. The play marking the climax of the game described in Chapter XXVI is a historic one, borrowed from a Yale-Harvard contest. Its hero was Mr. George W. Foster, of a champion Harvard nine.

ALBERTUS T. DUDLEY.