End of an Era: Trey Hendricks

The numbers, as good as they are, don’t tell the story. Trey Hendricks was the Ivy Pitcher of the Year and a unanimous first-teamer at two positions. He was the league leader in pitching wins and batting average, but the most important thing he led wasn’t a statistical category. It was an Ivy title run.

All Hendricks did was win games for his team—when it mattered most.

With Brown in town and Harvard clinging to its season by its red clay-stained fingernails, Hendricks took over.

After a Game 1 loss, the Crimson faced the daunting task of taking three straight from the always-scrappy Bears. But with the score knotted at 9-9 in the bottom of the ninth of Game 2, Hendricks lined a walk-off ground rule double over the fence in right field to keep the Crimson alive another day.

In Game 3 on Saturday, Hendricks was merciless, allowing one unearned run in a complete game 5-2 Harvard win.

Finally, just a few hours later in the nightcap of the doubleheader, Hendricks came in from third base to toss the final inning, the calm in the middle of a storm of base hits and ball fours. He picked up the win when his team rallied in the bottom of the ninth.

“I didn’t want to bring him in in the second game at all,” Harvard coach Joe Walsh said. “But he’s just staring at me every time, [seeming to say] ‘Put me in. Put me in.’”

Three Ivy wins, one man’s cleat prints on each of them. But the heroics were far from over.

As every Ivy season does, 2004 came down to the final weekend and a four-game set with Dartmouth.

On Saturday, Hendricks went 7-for-9 with two home runs in the doubleheader, but no one will remember that. Instead, it will be his infamous relief appearance in Game 2, when he took his only Ivy loss of the season after allowing two three-run homers in the ninth.

He threw 65 pitches. He should have been done for the weekend. But he started Game 3 anyway, throwing a complete game shutout in a 5-0 win. That’s how you blow out your arm for life.

That’s also how you give your team a chance to win an Ivy title.

“Hendricks,” Walsh said shaking his head after the game. “He wanted the ball for the second game today, too. I had to walk away from him...He probably would have talked me into it.”

He probably would have won, too.

—Staff writer Lande A. Spottswood can be reached at spottsw@fas.harvard.edu.