Army Brings East's Best Pitcher To Game With Harvard Saturday

The Harvard baseball team descends again to the workaday world this weekend after its 27-9 soar into Brandies could-cuckoo land. But the Crimson will land with a thud unless the hitters can scrape up some runs against Columbia today and Army Saturday.

The Cadets will be the real test, especially if they pitch Barry DeBolt, the man who stopped the New York Yankees on four hits in their exhibition game two weeks ago. Harvard has scored one run against DeBolt in two years, but the Crimson can't even hold out the hope that DeBolt won't start--his teammates Mac Hayes and Phil Nelson are both strong hurlers themselves.

Army is currently tied for first place in the Eastern inter-Collegiate Baseball League with Navy, and--not counting the 1-0 loss to the Yankees--is undefeated for the season. The Cadets took the league title last year with a 7-2 mark.

Columbia is far from being an Army, but the Lions are still a respectable ball club. The Lions' leading hitter is shortstop Steve Richman, who owned an incredible .475 batting average after last weekend's victories over Penn and Princeton. Richman, however, is a ham-handed fielder, as are the other Lions. In their first ten games this year, they committed 37 errors. The two recent wins given the club a 2-3 record in the EIBL, the same an Harvard's.

In both games, Harvard will be seeing two of the tallest first basemen in the East. Columbia's Bob Bosson and Army's Mike Silliman are each 6-6. Bosson is riding a hot streak: against Penn and Princeton he went 4 for 8, hit a three-run homer, and drove in 6 runs.

Catfish McCandlish, who stopped Princeton on two hits last Saturday, will pitch today against Columbia. The shutout lowered the Junior lefthander's ERA to 1.65 and gave them his third win against two losses. Sophomore Bob Lincoln is scheduled to start against Army. Lincoln's record is 1-2 and his ERA is 1.71.

Harvard has the batters to mangle DeBolt or anyone else, if they can only bunch a few of their hits. The infield is hitting a collective .342, with shortstop Jeff Grate leading the parade at .389. First baseman Bob Welz in batting .362, third baseman Jim Tobin is hitting .327, and little Nellie Houston, who averaged all of .244 last season, is up almost 100 points to .3-0.

Harvard's chances for winning the EIBL, are gone--losses to Penn. Navy, and Brown took care of that. But a pair of wins this weekend would go a long way toward hoisting the Crimson into the league's first division. And beating Army would be the most significant victory of the year, if the Crimson hitters can just pull together for one game.