Welcome back everyone to one thousand one classic short stories and tales. is your host, John Hagadorn. Today, two great stories

from Zane Gre's collection called The Young Pitcher. If you ever wanted to know what it was like

to be playing baseball for college about 110 years ago,

this is the perfect way to find out.

Enjoy.

And now the first of Zeng Gray's young pitcher stories, The Varsity Captain.

Ken Ward had not been at the big university many days before he realized the miserable lot of a

freshman. At first he was sorely puzzled. College was so different from what he

expected. At the high school of his hometown, which, being the capital of the state, was no village, he had been somebody.

Then his summer in Arizona, with its wild adventures, had given him a self-appreciation which made his present

situation humiliating. There were more than 4,000 students at the university.

Ken felt himself the youngest, the smallest, the one of least consequence.

In the forestry department he was a mere boy and he soon realized that a freshman there was the same

as anywhere.

The fact that he weighed nearly 160 pounds and was no stripling

despite his youth made not one wit of difference.

Unfortunately, his first overture of what he considered good fellowship

had been made to an upper-classman

and had been a grievous mistake.

Ken had not yet recovered from its reception. He grew careful after that, then

shy and finally began to struggle against disappointment and loneliness. Outside of his department, on the campus and everywhere he ventured,

he found things still worse. There was something wrong with him, with his fresh complexion,

...