President Eggleston protests that the editorial was a reflection on the athletic committee of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, "a part of which committee is composed of members of the faculty who are in every respect honorable gentlemen," and he denies that the umpire was assaulted by Virginia players. The Times-Dispatch never believed that the school's athletic committee was chargeable with responsibility for any action of individual students, and certainly never questioned the honor or gentility of its faculty. Hence, it could not have intended to reflect on either the athletic committee or the faculty.

As to the assault on the umpire, this newspaper spoke of if "according to reports." Those reports, contained in a dispatch from Creteville, S.C., published in The Times-Dispatch on April 10, stated that the V.P.I. catcher and the umpire engaged in a fight that the V.P.I. pitcher knocked the umpire down, that several other members of the V.P.I. team "helped mob him," that the Furtnan team went to the rescue of the umpire, that officers intervened and prevented a general fight between the two teams, that V.P.I. refused to continue the game until another umpire was provided, and that two V.P.I. men were arrested by the police.

The Times-Dispatch still thinks that conduct of that character is "rowdyism," and still insists that rowdyism of that character has heretofore been confined to professional leagues. 