Harvard, Northeastern Battle For Supremacy in Beantown

You can forget about Boston College, MIT, Tufts and Brandeis. The Greater Boston League (GBL) can be viewed this afternoon at 3 on the diamond of Soldiers Field. That's when Harvard and Northeastern go at it in a contest that should determine the winner of the mythical trophy honoring college baseball excellence in Beantown.

The Crimson (3-0 in the GBL) swept the six league games last year, while the Huskies were close behind with a 5-1 record. BC placed a distant third (3-5) followed by MIT (2-4), Brandeis (2-6) and Tufts (2-6). Harvard, in fact, has owned the title the last three years, and has finished on top 13 of the 19 years that the league has existed.

Once again, Harvard has been tabbed to take the honors this year, with Northeastern providing the only real challenge, even though Fran O'Brien picked his MIT squad as co-favorites with Harvard because everyone else figured his team would finish in the cellar.

Don Driscoll (1-2) will be on the mound today for Harvard. He and the rest of coach Loyal Park's pitching corps have shown steady improvement this season. Driscoll's last outing was a 3-1 GBL win against MIT last week.

Lefty Jim Hanell leads the squad with a 3-0 record and 1.16 ERA, while newly elected captain Mike O'Malley sports a 2-1 slate with a 1.33 ERA. In the most recent NCAA statistics, O'Malley ranked as the number six strikeout pitcher in the nation with a 13.0 average.

Designated hitter Joe Mackey paces the offense hitting at a 453 clip, while first baseman Leigh Hogan follows with a .361 average. Overall, the squad is hitting .305.