Diamondmen Bring Bats Back to Life

The Crimson baseball squad pounded out 12 hits and scored nine runs yesterday afternoon en route to an easy 9-1 victory. And what's even more amazing, 11 of those hits and all nine runs came in the last four innings. And if that's not enough to start the average Harvard baseball fan laughing in disbelief, six of those runs and six of those hits came in the sixth inning.

Wait a minute now, before you go running off to telephone this into Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not. You should be warned that the opponent was MIT, in one of those marathon three-and-a-half-hour Greater Boston League tilts. And to perhaps soften the blow a bit more, only one of the 12 hits was good for more than one base, Ed Durso's leadoff double in the first, and quite a few of the singles were of the scratch variety.

Horsehide Heroics

But never mind all that detracting stuff, 12 hits is 12 hits. The Harvard bats made some noise (even if it is the 'ping' of those aluminum jobs) and the base runners are no longer being left to die on the sacks. The old horsehide is once again dropping in for the Crimson nine, who boosted the team record to 20-8, 6-1 in the GBL.

For the first five innings, however, it wasn't so rosy. Engineer starter Mike Royal was breezing along with a one hitter. Only four Harvard batters reached base, two on walks and two on throwing errors by Mike (four errors in the game) Dziekan. Royal had a slim lead, 1-0, to work with, as Vince Maconi's bunt rolled past third baseman Jim Thomas (who is back in the line-up for the first time since April 30) for an RBI single in the fourth.

But in the sixth, the Engineer ace got the royal treatment from the Crimson hit parade. After the dust had cleared, and 11 batters had come to the plate, Harvard was leading 6-1.

Leigh Hogan (2 hits, 2 RBIs) led off the inning with a bunt single, and one out later Dave St. Pierre (2 hits, 2 RBIs), Jim Thomas, Don Driscoll and Leon Goetz all singled, one after the other. Ed Durso also had a base hit one out after that, his second of three hits on the afternoon. Needless to say, Royal did not appear on the mound at the start of the seventh.

Harvard picked up two more in the eighth off reliever Don Proper, as Hogan singled in a run and another scored on Dave St. Pierre's infield groundout. The run-crazy Crimson just couldn't seem to stop, and added yet another run (the highest total since the Brown contest April 19) in the ninth. Pinch hitter Larry Barbiaux belted a single and came home on a wild pitch by the Engineer's third hurler, John Cavolowski.

MIT could muster only five hits off starter and winner Jim Harrell, who went eight full innings before allowing Mark Linehan an inning's worth of work. Harrell's strong performance earned him his fourth win against a single loss.