Just Out of Reach

The last time the Harvard baseball team won as many games as it won this season, Ronald Reagan was just starting his second term as president, "Too Close for Comfort" was still on the air, and most of the current baseball team was in elementary school.

The Crimson (23-17, 14-6 Ivy), under the leadership of first-year head coach Joe Walsh, won its first-ever Red Rolfe division title this year, defying preseason expectations and tallying its most wins since its Ivy League championship season of 1985.

Yet much work remains to be done. The Crimson capped the season by losing four of its last five games, including two straight to Princeton that cost it an Ivy League title.

The season started off sunnily. Harvard avoided March in New England by playing its first 11 games in Florida and South Carolina against the likes of Flagler, Wofford and Limestone.

The Crimson only won five of those 11 games, but that's not bad for an Ivy League team playing south of New York City. If nothing else, the spring break games showed Walsh what needed to be done before the Ivy season started, and proved that as young a team as Harvard can win games--with a little heart.

The question all year with this team seemed to be whether a team with nine freshman pitchers on a staff of 13 could consistently win baseball games. Would captain Marc Levy, catcher Dennis Doble and first baseman Scott Parrot--the only seniors on the roster--provide enough leadership to improve on last year's abysmal 10-25 season?

The first week of the season seemed to answer that question in the affirmative. After a win at New Hampshire, Harvard began its Ancient Eight schedule by winning three of four on the road--one in chilly Ithaca against Cornell and two in New Jersey over Princeton.

The 3-1 start featured wins by two freshman pitchers--Quinn Schafer and Garret Vail--and a solid victory by returning ace Frank Hogan. The team could not ask for a much better beginning to its Ivy season.

Harvard kept it up the next weekend, splitting two home doubleheaders against Columbia and defending Ivy League champion Penn. The Crimson finished that second weekend of the season in first place in the Red Rolfe division, a lead it would never relinquish.

But things got a little shaky after tax day. Harvard entered the Beanpot on April 18th with hopes for an impressive showing in the Beanpot against UMass--ranked the top team in New England at the time.

The Minutemen, however, quickly dashed the Cinderella dreams of the Crimson, taking an easy 13-2 victory and starting Harvard on its longest losing streak of the season.

The Crimson went on to drop the first three games of its four-game weekend series at Yale before salvaging just one win against the hated Elis.

That one win ended up being the start of something special.

Three days later, a parrot grand slam helped power Harvard past MIT. The next weekend, Harvard cruised to four wins against Brown at home.

The hitting was coming around (freshman Hal Carey had already become an early favorite for the league's top rookie award), the pitching was strong (freshman pitchers Schafer and Andrew Duffell were beginning to establish themselves as having some of the best young arms in the league) and the team was two wins away from securing its first-ever division title.

All that stood in the way was a home-and-home four-game series against Dartmouth to close the Ivy League season.

In the first game, Schafer rode poor Dartmouth fielding and Harvard's characteristically scrappy offense to an 8-3 victory. The next game saw a 3-1 gem by Duffell, and all of a sudden, Harvard had an 11-game winning streak and was the Red Rolfe division champion.

The Crimson continued its rampage the next day, using its bats to pound out two wins over Dartmouth in Hanover. Doble was 11-for-15 in the series--this was a team that wanted to win.

In the week leading up to the best-of-three Ivy League championship series, Harvard lost a tough game to Northeastern and avenged its earlier loss to UMass, ending the 30th-ranked Minutemen's 18-game winning streak.

But that was it. Was it overkill? Inexperience? Who knows.

What we do know is that Harvard was swept in the championship series against Princeton, committing six errors in the first game to lose 15-6, and getting shutout in the nightcap, 1-0.

A successful season was ended in disappointing fashion.

Harvard's players did come away with a number of individual awards. Carey was, as expected, named Ivy League Rookie of the Year, Hogan made first-team All-Ivy, and five players--Duffell, Schafer, Doble, Carey, and sophomore Brett Vankoski--were named to the second team.

With five all-Ivy players returning and a year of playoff experience under its belt, Harvard should be the team to beat in 1997.

Harvard Sports Stats 1995-96

Baseball

Record: 23-17, 14-6 Ivy

Ivy Finish: Second

Head Coach: Joe Walsh

Captain: Marc Levy '96

Other Key Players: Frank Hogan '97, Hal Carey '99, Brett Vankoski '98, Dennis Doble '96, Scott Parrot '96