Barber's Curves Blank Crimson, 4-0

KINGSTON, R.I.--This is why baseball players go to school in Florida.

With a 25-m.p.h. headwind and midwinter temperatures putting a sting in to the plushest of batting gloves and making a major leaguer out of URI's puff-balling Ron Barber, the Harvard baseball team dropped a 4-0 decision to the Rams at Bill Beck field here yesterday.

Barber's slow stuff handcuffed the Crimson (now 7-8) on five hits and punished junior Jim Curtin with an undeserved loss.

And what made the day all the more frustrating was that Barber's pitches looked as big as watermelons and took as long as a Blue Line ride to Logan to get to the plate.

"He gave me good pitches to hit and I just didn't hit them," Vinnie (oh-for-four) Martelli said after the game. "That's the secret to hitting--to hit the two or three good pitches you get every game. I just didn't do it."

Martelli looked bad in the clean-up spot, fanning three times on nickel-curves and popping to second and number-three hitter Brad Bauer (.358 before yesterday) was also collared. Erase Donny Allard's ninth-inning single and that's anoh-for-ten in the heart of the batting order--something not even a team that scored 20 runs last time can afford.

Too bad, because Curtin (now 1-1) threw well. Mixing a wind-aided fast-ball with an impressive new change-up ("coach Nahigian is trying to get us all to use it"--Curtin) he breezed through the spotty Ram lincup, finding trouble only when his control faltered in the third.

After walking URI's Dave Starrett and plunking number-nine batter Joe Ouellette on the tow, Curtin got two men out on a sacrifice bunt and a short fly ball.

But the southpaw lost Tony Carlucci on a 3-2 pitch after Allard missed a wind-blown foul fly, and back-to-back hits later, the Rams had a 3-0 lead and the ball game.

Hitless until the sixth, the Crimson exploded for two singles in that frame, but Barber forced Bauer to bounce to short for the third out. The visitors put runners on first and second again in the seventh, but Danny Skaff grounded a nerf ball to third to seal the inning.

And that was that--scratch singles in the eighth and ninth amounted to nothing and Barber coasted to a complete-game, shutout victory in his first start of the year.

It's hard to argue with his rinky-dink soft stuff, however: Barber has now thrown 19 2/3 innings, allowing no runs and just ten hits. That's a class act that might go over even in Florida.

THE NOTEBOOK: Allard's single preserved a four-game hitting streak. The sophomore has hit the ball very well of late, and his sub-. 100 average has swelled to a respectable .267. Harvard at Rhode Island HARVARD [0]  AB  R  H  BI Weller,cf  4  0  1  0 Scheper.lf  4  0  1  0 Bauer,ss  4  0  0  0 Marteill,lb  4  0  0  0 Allard,rf  2  0  1  0 Chicarellc,dh  4  0  0  0 Lyman,2b  3  0  1  0 Skaff,3b  3  0  1  0 Wark,c  3  0  0  0   31  0  5  0 URI[4]  AB  R  H  BI Howard,cf  2  0  0  0 Pirrello,ss  3  0  0  1 Carlucci,c  2  1  1  0 Healy,lb  4  0  1  1 Kindregan,dh  3  0  1  2 Pamaglan,dh  1  0  0  0 Haley,rf  3  0  0  0 Mediorce,lf  4  0  1  0 Starrett,3b  3  2  2  0 Ouellette,2b  3  1  0  0   26  4  6  4

  IP  R  ER  H  BB  K Curtin (L, 1-1)  8  4  0  6  4  5 Barber (W, 1-0)  9  0  0  5  1  5 E-Allard, Curtin A-30 T-1:39

  IP  R  ER  H  BB  K Curtin (L, 1-1)  8  4  0  6  4  5 Barber (W, 1-0)  9  0  0  5  1  5 E-Allard, Curtin A-30 T-1:39