{shortcode-e6ea0e4be2e66e86cd31d24db4282d81b7c4d2bd}
{shortcode-dd08abb0bb2b02bf4881baaa9fb305566107f8d4}he morning after the Los Angeles Dodgers’ dramatic World Series win, Morgan Brown ’06 still sounded half in disbelief. “It was just cinematic baseball,” he said, referencing the leaping catch, the late-inning blast, and the bang-bang double play that sealed the game’s fate.
“There were so many points where the outcome was in question, and it swung heavily based on individual plays,” Brown, now an Advisor for Baseball Development for the Dodgers, said. “It was pretty legendary.”
Brown, one of Harvard baseball’s most successful shortstops, had every reason to feel thrilled by this fall’s World Series outcome.
The Dodgers’ dominant October run wasn’t just another postseason for him—it was the latest chapter in a Harvard baseball story that’s quietly stretched from Joseph O’Donnell Field in Cambridge, Mass.achusetts to the Major League.
Alongside Brown, three other Crimson alumni played key roles within the Dodgers and Blue Jays organizations this season: Frank Herrmann ’06 is a Pitching Development Coordinator for the Toronto Blue Jays, Jake McGuiggan ’15 is a Bench Coach for Toronto’s affiliate team, the Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats, and Chase Aldridge ’19 is the Assistant Director of Methodology and Player Development for the Dodgers.
These four alumni are no longer playing in the Crimson uniforms, but they share a Harvard-bred way of approaching the game that has spurred success in baseball’s highest level.
The Crimson’s presence in professional baseball is not new, and its influence keeps growing.
“I think Harvard and the Ivy League are very well represented in Major League front offices,” Herrmann reflected. “It’s kind of a post-Moneyball thing, where it’s not just the best former players in control anymore. There’s a lot more analytics and depth that you have to understand the game at now, and you have to be able to communicate with the players.”
For Herrmann, this shift has opened the door for a different kind of competitor, one who combines intellect with drive.
“Harvard students in general are a very highly competitive bunch,” Herrmann said. “You could probably make more money in other aspects of life, but this is such a cool environment to work in. You’re surrounded by people from different walks of life, different cultures, different backgrounds, and you’re all trying to tie those resources together to build a world-championship-caliber team.”
{shortcode-e74b1fe971ac19412dcc54e16bc57b0bebc5760b}
Herrmann’s route took him from the Harvard outfield to the Major League, to Japan, and then back to the MLB. The East Rutherford, New Jersey, native was a lightly recruited two-sport athlete who nearly quit baseball after his freshman season.
Luckily for the Crimson, Herrmann stuck with it, won an Ivy League title as a junior, and signed as an undrafted free agent with Cleveland. He played five years in the minors before making his big-league debut. After undergoing Tommy John surgery and the resulting long rehab process, Herrmann returned to the MLB with the Philadelphia Phillies before heading overseas for a five-year stint in Japan. Herrmann recorded some of his early experiences in professional baseball in his column, “Ballpark Frank,” published by The Crimson.
“Baseball has given me so much,” Herrmann said. “It helped get me into Harvard.”
“Then there was this opportunity to go play in Japan,” he added. “I thought, let’s give it a shot for a year, and I ended up spending five.”
Now employed by the Toronto Blue Jays organization, Herrmann still scouts in Japan twice a year and works to unlock potential in young pitchers who hope to follow in his footsteps.
“Being a Major Leaguer is very difficult,” he said. “Sometimes you have to take calculated risks.”
“You have to push the envelope. It’s a 365-day career.”
{shortcode-b9d2921bd9c79e42c3b00e04617766c8289c2477}
McGuiggan represents the next generation of Harvard’s baseball lineage. A four-year starter during his time in Cambridge, he joined the Blue Jays organization as an intern in 2018 and has since climbed the ladder to become a bench coach for the Fisher Cats.
“Harvard’s such a unique blend,” McGuiggan said. “High-end Division I baseball—you’re playing some of the best competition in the world—and the academic background. It’s a thinking man’s game.”
McGuiggan credits older Harvard baseball alumni for inspiring him to pursue a career in the game.
David Forst ’98 is General Manager of the Oakland Athletics, Jeff Bridich ’00 is the former General Manager of the Colorado Rockies, Peter Woodfork ’99 is the Senior Vice President of Minor League Operations and Development, Ben Crockett ’02 is the Senior Vice President of Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox, and Mike Hill ’93 is the Senior Vice President of on-field operations for Major League Baseball.
Seeing Harvard players not only reach professional baseball as players, but also fill prominent front office positions, showed McGuiggan that the career path was an option, as people who once stood where he stood have risen to some of the most influential roles in the sport.
For McGuiggan, this mattered because Harvard isn’t a traditional pipeline to professional baseball. The program produces smart, competitive players, but it isn’t necessarily a factory for blue-chip prospects.
“That’s why seeing those guys succeed meant so much,” McGuiggan said. “They showed that you can start from a place that isn’t a baseball powerhouse and still build a real career in the game.”
“There’s value in humble beginnings,” he added. “Get your foot in the door, work from the bottom up… I’ve never liked the expression ‘work for your next job.’ I work for the job I have.”
{shortcode-fb9e9422514c1fc46afae4f65fd2d8a33227572a}
Meanwhile, on the Dodgers’ side, Aldridge embodies the modern game’s analytical shift. A former walk-on and co-captain who helped lead the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective, Aldridge’s résumé traces through an internship with a Bundesliga club, a stint with the Padres, and a role with the Dodgers that has taken him from Utah to the Dominican Republic to Arizona.
“Methodology,” Aldridge explained, “is making sure we have the best practice design we can, helping our coaches teach better, set up better environments, or learn whatever they want to learn. It’s about creating a learning environment so everyone can get better.”
For Aldridge, the Dodgers’ philosophy mirrors the kind of autonomy Harvard students are used to. “We have a real bias toward action,” he said. “Our VP of Player Development says to hold a ‘Game 7 World Series’ standard, but he doesn’t tell you exactly how to do your job. You figure it out.”
Brown witnesses a resemblance to Harvard’s culture in the Major League as well.
“Curiosity and humility are the two most important ones,” he said. “You realize very early on you’re never going to be the smartest person in any room, and there’s a lot you can learn from classmates, coaches, and everyone around you.”
“Be present. Consistent attitude, consistent effort—those are things we can control. Over a long season, that compounds,” McGuiggan said, agreeing with his fellow alumnus.
Herrmann, the Crimson’s 2005 Breakout Athlete of the Year, adds conviction to the mix of skills that are necessary for success both at Harvard and in baseball.
“Have a core philosophy everyone knows offhand…for us, getting ahead and throwing your best stuff consistently in the zone, but then within that, individualizing different approaches for each player,” Hermann said. “Understanding what players’ strengths and weaknesses are, and trying to communicate that to the player so that they know why we value them, and they also know the areas we feel like are deficits for them that they need to work on to make themselves major leaguers.”
That kind of honesty requires buy-in on both sides. Just as Harvard students learn to absorb tough feedback in the classroom, players in a development system have to learn to take criticism, adjust quickly, and trust that the staff is pushing them toward a higher ceiling, not away from it.
As baseball grows more technical, its human element only deepens. Aldridge points to an abnormal psychology class he took at Harvard that still shapes his approach: “Try to observe what’s actually in front of you and treat it to the best of your ability.”
McGuiggan applies the same mindset in Double-A, where the gap between “not yet” and “next” is often mental. “At the upper levels, it’s fewer big-picture changes,” he said. “It’s fine-tuning and preparing guys mentally and emotionally for the challenge of upper-level baseball.”
For all four Crimson alumni, the thread connecting Harvard to professional baseball isn’t just intellect or ambition; it’s community.
{shortcode-6eebdee37ffef0ee8203e82d48b89623dabb7023}
Brown, who walked on to the Crimson roster, now finds himself advising one of baseball’s most storied franchises. He has returned frequently to the Harvard community, where he got his master’s degree at the Kennedy School, worked as the Director of Baseball Operations for his old team, and served as the Executive Director of the Institute of Politics.
Herrmann, his former teammate, now mentors a new generation of pitchers, drawing on a career that took him from going undrafted to reaching the Majors, reinventing himself in Japan, and returning to help young arms navigate the path he once fought through.
McGuiggan also mentors young athletes as they play in the minor league.
Aldridge, who captained the Harvard team years later, has become a bridge between analytics and coaching, helping shape how the next generation learns the game.
The Harvard connections run deep: teammate to coach, coach to captain, all tied together not just by the same field in Cambridge, Mass., but by the same shared love of the game.
When October and playoff baseball come around, these threads sometimes meet on baseball’s biggest stage—proof that the Crimson’s network stretches far beyond the classroom, and that Harvard’s brand of curiosity and competition thrives just as much under bright stadium lights as it does in the lecture hall.
“How you do anything is how you do everything,” Brown said, offering advice that might as well be Harvard’s unofficial motto for life after a career on the baseball diamond. “Pursue everything with joy, but also determination to try your best and do your best,” he said.
“Be one percent better than yesterday.”
