Rain and Losing Aside, Crimson Dugout Shines

There was really no reason to be smiling, but in the bottom of the second inning of game two yesterday, I caught myself laughing out loud.

It was miserably cold, and the sky was a bleak gray, saturated with rain drops that had been steadily falling all afternoon. The Harvard baseball team had already dropped perhaps its most important game of the season in heart-breaking fashion just minutes earlier, and now stood deadlocked in a tie with Brown for first place in the Red Rolfe Division.

Still, shivering underneath seven soaked layers on a day baseball should have never been played, I caught myself laughing.

The Crimson had a man on third with one out, and, much to the amusement of the Harvard dugout, Brown’s starting pitcher was having problems throwing strikes in the drizzle.

With their black hats pulled low to shield the rain, the players hooted and hollered at every pitch. If they were cold, they didn’t show it. If they were upset about the earlier loss, they didn’t act like it. They were just boys at the ball field having fun, and I couldn’t help but chuckle.

On this wreck of a day, when the few fans that actually braved the cold to come out had left long before, the kids in black caps were actually having a good time.

They were focused and ready to rally. The same ball club that dragged through the first half of the season, now stood erect. The players’ heads were up, their eyes glimmering with desire.

I was watching a new team.

Less than two weeks ago, Harvard hosted Boston College in a midweek matchup. It was about 80 degrees, and the green grass of O’Donnell Field smelled of summer beneath the cloudless, blue sky. It was a perfect day for baseball.

But in the nine innings of the 12-3 loss, I only remember hearing one voice, that of senior shortstop Mark Mager.

After every sparkless half-inning, Mager would run in or out of the dugout, reminding his team that there was a lot of baseball left to play. At times, the Crimson players looked as if they wished there wasn’t.

That day, it didn’t seem like a single Harvard player wanted to be on the diamond. No one was having fun.

Though I’d bet big money Mager was among those yelling yesterday, I couldn’t pick him out amid the chorus. Everyone was up, everyone was yelling, and it didn’t seem that any of them had a place they’d rather be.

Sometime in the last two weeks, the Crimson rediscovered the fun of baseball. Maybe it was down in Connecticut with four victories over Yale, or maybe it was playing at Fenway Park amid memories of legends like Babe Ruth and Ted Williams. There can’t be much in baseball as fun as hitting a line drive off of the Green Monster.

However, regardless of where or when or how it arrived at this point, the Crimson is now where it needs to be—ready to take charge of its own world.

With the postponement of yesterday’s second game due to the weather, Harvard and Brown both claim 10-5 Ivy records. With only five league games remaining for both teams, today’s 3 p.m. make-up contest with the Bears is the biggest game of the season.

Does Harvard’s newfound intensity mean it’s going to win? Of course not, but it does mean that the Crimson is not going to give up.

Though Harvard has dropped two of its three games to Brown, both were by only one-run margins. The Crimson’s three losses since the April 17 contest against Boston College have come by a combined four runs. Harvard showed its mettle best when it roared back from a 9-0 deficit to defeat Beanpot champion Northeastern.

But after 35 games filled with both heroic and forgetable performances, the Crimson and the Bears are starting all over beginning today.

The next five games are for the entire season. The team that fares better will go on to the play for the Ivy title. The team that slips up will get to start its summer vacation on schedule.

What’ll happen is anyone’s guess, but the smart money says, rain or shine, the Crimson will have fun from now on.