Saved By The Bell: The Sun Will Shine Tomorrow

BOSTON—After the Harvard baseball team fell out of Ivy League contention on Sunday, senior John Birtwell tried to put his final collegiate appearance in perspective. After talking for a bit about how he felt, he simply shrugged.

“The world’s still turning,” he said. “The sun’s still going to come out tomorrow.”

For most of the players, “tomorrow” was actually two days away. Yesterday offered the promise of the Beanpot Tournament at Fenway, and a chance to win something of significance before the season ended—the team’s first Beanpot in over a decade.

But in another sense, “tomorrow” also simply meant the chance to go out and play baseball again. And, in the midst of an ultimately disappointing loss, signs of the sun coming out were still evident.

The sun came out for Barry Wahlberg. The sophomore reliever had enjoyed a pretty good year before Saturday, carrying a sub-3.00 ERA in various roles. But he was shelled in his relief appearance in Saturday’s first game, allowing Dartmouth to turn a three-run lead into an 11-1 advantage. As Wahlberg gave up hit after hit, several Big Green fans began calling for the rest of the Funky Bunch. The Crimson mounted an incredible comeback, but still fell two runs short of tying the game.

Wahlberg rebounded from the crushing loss in emphatic fashion yesterday. He had decent control all afternoon-the radar gun at Fenway had his fastball in the low nineties, and he struck out five in six innings. He allowed only two earned runs, and only really began to show signs of collapse after senior John O’Donnell lost a ball in the sun in the bottom of the sixth, prompting a UMass rally.

It hasn’t been an easy year for Wahlberg. He began the year as the football team’s starting quarterback only to be benched after his first game, an interception-filled loss to Holy Cross. Runs he surrendered against Dartmouth on the mound last week could have meant the difference for the team’s postseason hopes.

But yesterday reaffirmed his promise-at least on the diamond. When asked after the game whether Wahlberg would figure into next season’s rotation, Walsh didn’t hesitate.

“He’s got a great arm, great velocity,” Walsh said. “He’s gonna be a great strikeout guy for us.”

The Crimson will need whatever it can get from Wahlberg next season with Birtwell and possibly junior Ben Crockett leaving. Yesterday’s affair will go a long way toward giving Wahlberg the confidence to make it happen.

The sun still shines for senior left fielder Joe Llanes. Llanes very quietly lived one of the best stories to hit Harvard athletics in several years-a successful recovery from testicular cancer. In the Crimson’s must-win game Sunday morning, he got all of a pitch that would have kept the team’s season alive had it left the park. The wind kept it just inside O’Donnell Field, and Harvard ended up losing.

But if you’re Joe Llanes and you have the opportunity to play baseball at Fenway a couple of days later, what else can you do but keep trying? Llanes did just that, gunning down a runner at the plate in the sixth inning yesterday to keep his team within striking distance.

The play will be largely forgotten years from now, especially considering the game’s more memorable later innings. It shouldn’t be.

The sun still shines for sophomore catcher Brian Lentz as well. Lentz hit two home runs in the second Dartmouth game on Saturday, and the second sent the game into extra innings. Lentz could only watch as a pitch he called from Birtwell was sent soaring past the centerfield wall to nullify his homer.

But, if you’re a guy like Lentz and you’re given the opportunity to play baseball at Fenway a couple of days later, what else can you do but shrug it off and keep swinging? Lentz did just that yesterday, and knocked a Jesse Santos pitch over the park’s famed Green Monster in left to cap off a five-run rally in the top of the ninth.

That rally tied the game and took Wahlberg off the hook. More importantly, it showed that the team could still motivate itself down several runs in a game that meant little compared to the setback it had suffered two days earlier.

Unlike the Minutemen, who took full advantage of their visit to the Fenway clubhouse, Harvard’s players never really settled into the dugout. Instead, as always, they were several steps away from the bench, cheering on the guy at the plate or on the mound.

This morning’s Beanpot consolation game against Northeastern, who was pummeled B.C. in the other opener, will be even more difficult to get up for. It will be the final game of the year and-for all intents and purposes-the most meaningless.

But it will also be a game. It will be a chance to play ball, a chance to build, and another chance for the team to display its character. And it is only appropriate that it will be played in a park where, for so many fans, the sun will always come out tomorrow.