A Troubled Beanpot

BOSTON--Last year my colleague John Trainer asked a question about the Baseball Beanpot Tournament to the tune of, "What if they held a Beanpot and nobody showed up?"

An entire year has passed since that "hypothetical" thought was uttered, but the situation yesterday in the Baseball Beanpot at Fenway Park brought the same thought to mind.

I'd first like to point out that nothing should be taken away from the Northeastern and Harvard baseball teams, who played a high-quality game in which the Huskies won, 4-1.

The Crimson strung together nine hits in the fifth through eighth innings after being no-hit through four, but a freak groundout to third that deflected off Northeastern pitcher John Forneiro, and two hard-hit double-plays ended three of those rallies. (Harvard scored in the other inning, the sixth, off of Jamie Crowley's triple into the right-center gap.)

Putting the game aside, it is very strange to see Fenway Park so empty. Even if the Red Sox were down by 15 runs in the bottom of the ninth, there would be probably 100 times more people in the stands than there were yesterday in the middle of a close game.

Heck, there were probably more people who got into the ballpark for free--players, coaches, media members and stadium crew--than paying customers (of which there were no more than a generous 150, whose donations go to the Jimmy Fund).

Because of these eerie surroundings, even the commonplace 'fun' childhood activities associated with going to a game were threatened.

For instance, take the excitement associated with the race for a foul ball.

Here's what goes wrong in an empty stadium; A) You cannot even find the ball amid the thousand or so vacated seats in the area where the ball lands. Now did it hit the first 10 rows of the blues or the back 10 of the reds?

B) Grown-up men start going for the balls as well, scaring off the poor youngsters. I kid you not--in the bottom of the sixth, with the score 2-1, a Northeastern player fouled a pitch back into the stands to the right of home plate. One ambitious youngster proceeded to run after the sphere.

But to his amazement, an older man ran off after the ball as well and must have scared the child out of his wits since he raced like the Dickens back to his seat without the ball.

C) If you ever got the thrill of finding the ball, a security guard would soon be on your case, ordering you to return it to the field. (Harvard is such a financially-poor institution, you know) Imagine that someone asked you to return a ball during a Red Sox game or a puck in the Beanpot hockey game.

So where does this all lead, you're probably asking by now?

Well, the Baseball Beanpot will take a back seat to its hockey counterpart for a long, long time. 41 years of hockey tradition go much farther than five years of baseball. The players try just as hard, but the tournament is staged in a minor-league way.

Many of you who are reading this column probably didn't know that a Baseball Beanpot existed until a couple of days ago.

There is practically no advertising for the tournament, and thus nobody but friends, family and members of the media go to the games.

But just as important is that the games have to be played at night, even if it costs more.

Students have classes and athletic practices in the afternoon and won't be tempted to ride out to Fenway in the middle of the day.

Otherwise, the echoes of struck baseballs will ring out loud and clear in Fenway for years to come, as will the question, "What if they held a Beanpot and nobody showed up?" (And yes, let the kids keep the balls.)