A month into the season, James was reading a letter from his son, Ephraim, who was expressing some frustration on being placed on the reserve roster at Rutgers and not getting any playing time. James wrote back to his son and reassured him that his time would come, but to just keep practicing hard and show the coaches what he could do. But Ephraim, always the competitor, responded to James that he was even more frustrated by the pitchers lack of ability at the plate. "The pitchers can throw some really mean pitches, but they can't hit worth a lick," Ephraim wrote. James looked over the statistics sent to his office for the first month of the season, but didn't really see anything to back up Ephraim's claims. "The boy is just frustrated he isn't seeing playing time," James thought to himself, but he decided at season's end, he would review the statistics again and see what transpired.
The month of April started out like March, with an injury on the first day. Lafayette senior center fielder Tim Jensen, who had been hitting .326, went down for two weeks with a knee sprain. A few days later, though, the unthinkable happened. Lehigh fired manager Chase Whitehead. It was unthinkable because it was during the season. James didn't quite know what to think, but then again, Whitehead hadn't been very successful at Lehigh. Whitehead had been the bench coach for the school in 1871, then was promoted to manager. While the team's record improved in 1872, it had declined in 1873. Their 7-16 start this season was apparently more than Athletic Director John Mitchell could take. Whitehead ended his career with Lehigh with a record of 54-89. Whitehead's replacement was immediately announced as Luke Rising. Rising had been a star shortstop at Penn, and at the age of 25, is the youngest manager in the association.
Chase Whitehead (Fired!!)
Luke Rising (Hired!)
By April 11th, Syracuse senior third baseman John Baker had hit safely in 34 straight games. That ended against Cornell, who shut Baker down and won the game 3-0. When the streak ended, Baker was hitting .331 with 29 runs batted in. The following day, Yale senior first baseman Matthew Filla's season came to an end when he suffered a hernia. Filla was hitting .320 in 27 games. On April 15th, Penn's senior catcher, Rich "Kingfish" Pecor, fractured his thumb and was lost for the season. Pecor had hit .341 with two homers and 30 runs batted in, with 32 games played.
At the end of the month, Jimmy "Icon" Schuelke, a senior right fielder for Harvard, was named Batter of the Month. Schuelke hit .391 with 16 RBI in April. The Pitcher of the Month was once again Jo Key of Cornell. The senior posted a 13-5 record in April, with a 2.00 earned run average. For the season, Key is 26-8, with a 2.05 ERA.
Jimmy "Icon" Schuelke, Harvard University
Jo Key, Cornell University
Here are the standings as of the end of April.