Baseball tryouts for the 1990-91 squad have turned into a numbers game.

Of the 187 players who began the tryouts last week, only 60 are still seeing some hope for their Huskies baseball careers. Head coach Spanky MacFarland expects to dim the picture for about 30 more hopefuls on Friday.

“We’re having intra-squads all of this week,” MacFarland said. “Friday, we will cut down to the actual team for the fall.”

The final team will consist of about 30 players. The team will participate in all of the fall workouts which include fundamentals, team work and the weight room.

“The 30 will go all the way up until the second week of November outdoors,” MacFarland said. “Then we’ll hit the weight room, if not earlier.”

Come Spring time, MacFarland said he will hold additional tryouts after which time he will make the final cuts down to the 20 players that will represent NIU on the baseball diamond.

“We feel better about the team after looking at it,” MacFarland said. “There is a little more talent in the area than we thought.

“No coach likes to shatter a players dreams,” MacFarland said. “What we’ve been doing is basically giving everyone a number, so we don’t get too involved.”

MacFarland has been keeping statistics and at the end of the week the coaching crew gets together and makes the decisions.

Last week, the tandem cut the original 187 players down to 120, they then cut that number in half on Friday.

“It hasn’t been easy,” MacFarland said. “We’ve been looking at the basic tools so far. Now we’re looking for the intangibles. It’s going to be tough, but we’re in pretty good shape.”