'Blo It Right By 'Em: Caught in a Virtual Reality

Hamburgers, cowboy hats, pickup trucks, shotguns, horses, lassoes and Chinese people playing on professional basketball teams are just a few of the things that are “bigger” in Texas, I’m told.

Now, I’ll admit that I’m no Texan, but after this weekend’s sandlot action in Lubbock, I think that we just might be able to add another item to the list.

Earned run averages.

My case for the ERA may best be proven through the simple fact that as I sat down to write this article, my mind literally lapsed in and out of reality.

Scanning the weekend results, I was flashing back to games I had played in World Series Baseball 2002, somehow, when I would crush the computer in virtual double-digit slugfests with the National League All-Stars, reveling in the absolute, whimsical fantasy of it all.

“15-12!” a younger, more naive last-summer version of me exclaimed.

But oh, how things have changed.

On Saturday night, I was forced to come to grips with the following figure: During the first three games of the Crimson’s road-strip, 107 total runs were scored.

Harvard had given up 68 of them.

Read that figure again, and let it sink in.

The boys from Cambridge began their weekend by scoring over 20 times against Air Force in a 25-20 shootout, but the Red Raiders did them one better by crossing the plate against the Crimson a staggering 30 different times, edging our boys out 30-8 in the second-highest Tech tally ever.

Life, after a long time coming, had seemingly begun to imitate video games—but unfortunately, it wasn’t the Grand Theft Auto 3 kind as I had hoped.

Instead, I legitimately thought that I was reading box scores from October, when I watched the Crimson upend the Northeastern football team 28-20 on a rainy, Harvard Stadium afternoon.

But quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick’s season had ended more than three months ago, I realized; heck, I had watched “R-Rated Hypnotist” Frank Santos fail to mesmerize the junior signal caller in Lowell Lecture Hall on Friday night.

So in the end, it was me, all alone with facts and unwanted memories of a summer wasted surging back to my mind.

It wasn’t the Sega Dreamcast version of Mike Piazza hitting two moon-shots in a game.

It was junior catcher Schuyler Mann cranking three round-trippers over a two-game span.

And no, that wasn’t Jesus, but Texas Tech centerfielder Michael Mask who went 3-for-3 with four runs scored, five RBI and three home runs in one.

The Crimson’s team ERA skyrocketed into the warm air of Dan Law Field, and if these weekend statistics aren’t big enough for you, Texas, then I just don’t know what is.

But there are larger issues at hand than just the magnitude of results.

After the Crimson’s sojourn into the Lone Star State, I’m worried.

Who knows if this is just the beginning to a season that can only be compared—once again—to World Series Baseball 2002, when I somewhat pathetically broke every offensive record known to man in Franchise Mode.

Maybe, I fear, I have seen more than just some early-season rust, or a pure statistical anomaly.

What if the Crimson will actually stay on pace to notch 473 runs over the course of a 43 game regular season—while surrendering an unholy 742?

The statistics, on their own, are stunning.

But “it’s a long season, and you gotta trust them,” Annie Savoy tells me in the opening scenes of Bull Durham.

And, ultimately, I do.

Because just as I was about to give up, it was all suddenly back to normal.

On Sunday, March 7, 2004, during the second week of Lent, God restored order to the Harvard College baseball universe, and all was right with the world once again.

As I watched the fourth and final game of the Crimson’s road trip online that morning, I saw Rutherford, N.J. native Frank Herrmann put a stop to all this Texas lunacy and shut down Air Force in a complete game victory, 5-1.

Against that same team that had scored 20 runs a day earlier; and yes, for the same team that had exploded for 25 less than 24 hours prior.

So, at least for the time being, I’m wise enough to trust Harvard coach Joe Walsh, and trust the players themselves, once it gets down to it.

As Annie Savoy exhorts me to, I will remember that it is only three days into a long season, after all.

But my mind can’t help but lapse, from time to time. I can’t help but fear that at this rate, the season could still turn out to be downright offensive.

In more ways, unfortunately, than one.

—Staff writer Pablo S. Torre can be reached at torre@fas.harvard.edu. His column appears on alternate Mondays.