If you think the Harvard women’s squash team (6-0, 3-0 Ivy) had it tough last weekend in terms of opposition, just look at the pair of foes coming up on the schedule. The Crimson will host No. 3 Penn on Saturday and No. 7 Princeton the following day. The only comfort for Harvard (and luckily for squash fans on campus) is that all this will be taking place on home territory at the Barnaby Courts.

It seems like the Crimson is cruising to a national title after beating No. 2 Trinity, 7-2, and No. 6 Stanford, 8-1, in back-to-back days. It was a physically exhausting stretch and a challenge for the women’s team. This past weekend marked the first time that Harvard dropped any matchup, going 9-0 in the first four games of the season. This weekend, the Crimson hopes to maintain its perfect record and escape unscathed.

Harvard coach Satinder Bajwa granted The Back Page an interview on Sunday after the Crimson handily beat its West Coast rivals. He shared his thoughts on the mentality of the team and its preparation in the days leading up to another taxing weekend.

Bajwa on the team dropping games to Trinity:

“Even the best of the best are going to have a bad day. But the best people win when they have a bad day. [Saturday] what we didn’t have was a bad day; what we had was different conditions. So when you play against Trinity, they’re the only one with panel courts. Their glass courts are different colors. The girls had a hard time adjusting to the conditions, so we lost a couple of matches. That’s all. In terms of if they were to play again, every one of them is capable of winning their match at a neutral place.”

Last weekend, sophomore Nirasha Guruge had an uncharacteristic loss, her first of the season, against Stanford’s Pamela Chua. Bajwa had this to say:

“I wasn’t surprised. I think Nirasha would win that match next time; it’s not a match that she can’t win. But she played a five game match [Saturday], and she had to come up from behind because she couldn’t get used to the court. She had to work very hard to win that match, and [Sunday] she lost a little edge from having to play [Saturday]. I personally think sometimes you can have a bad win and a good loss.”

Forecast on the rest of the season:

“Injuries and well-being of the team is key to winning. Good planning for them so that they can perform on the day is the coach’s job. The work is done now, so it is a matter of being there. If belief is there and there are no injuries, then we should win.”

When asked about the Harvard-Princeton rivalry, Bajwa felt like it wasn’t going to play as big a role as it did last year when the Tigers’ championship team beat the Crimson in a heartbreaker, 5-4. Here’s what he clarified:

“I know that Princeton just recently beat Yale, but the stronger opponent coming into the match is Penn. Penn beat Princeton. [Last weekend] the toughest match on paper came [Saturday], and the next one will be on [next] Saturday. But it doesn’t get any easier playing Princeton the day after.”

Harvard’s preparation:

“We’re focusing on quality over quantity. Sometimes they feel like if you hang around the squash courts you’ll get better. The girls understand that they must do one and a half hours of quality training, and then save your energy and recover. Training and recovering at the same time is key.”

It’s a rare opportunity for fans of America’s pastime to pick the brain of one of the great baseball storytellers of the 20th Century, but that’s exactly what a captivated crowd at the First Church of Cambridge Congregational’s Lindsay Chapel had the opportunity to do last Thursday when Hall of Fame sports writer Peter Gammons came to speak.

As the Crimson article notes, Gammons touched on a variety of issues, ranging from steroids to Major League Baseball’s role in Latin America. But Gammons had plenty more to say, and the Back Page has you baseball junkies covered below with extra insight from one of sports journalism’s true pioneers:

ALL THE ‘ROID RAGE

Gammons on allowing steroid users into the Hall of Fame:

“The line that I’ve drawn, is that anyone who tested positive from 2005 on, when there was a policy…[is] disqualified.”

More on steroids:

“I don’t worry about people who were guilty and we never find out…[It is] much worse to be innocent, and be thought by us to be guilty.”

On Barry Bonds’ Hall of Fame chances:

“Bonds is going to be interesting…Next to Ted Williams, he’s the most intelligent person to discuss hitting that I’ve ever met in my life.”

On Roger Clemens:

“I actually think he believes he did nothing.”

On former St. Louis Cardinals slugger and admitted steroid user Mark McGwire, now the Cardinals’ hitting coach:

“He loves to teach. He loves the game. I thought his interview with Bob Costas was too prepared.”

More McGwire:

“Mark is a classic Type A,” Gammons said, relating a story he had hear in which McGwire “ditched one of his girlfriends because she left the orange juice out twice in one week.”

TALKING BASEBALL

On baseball academies in Dominican Republic and other Latin American countries:

“They have these…agents who grab these kids when they’re 10, 12 years old. They don’t play, they just workout. It’s tough to tell when a kid doesn’t play how he got that big and athletic.

On recently departed Red Sox left fielder and new Met Jason Bay:

“He was good in [Boston] because he’s Canadian, he’s a hockey guy. He just skates his wing and nothing bothers him.”

On Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka:

“The problem that he has here is that everything he does here is so over-reported in Japan, where he’s a rock star. It’s fascinating to understand how miserable he is in Japan and how happy he is buried somewhere in Brookline.”

On Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer, who is reportedly on the verge of signing a long-term deal with his hometown team:

“He takes being from St. Paul so seriously…He probably will re-sign. He’s by far the most popular athlete in Minnesota.”

On former Red Sox and New York Yankees player Johnny Damon, currently a free agent:

“I’m not sure Johnny’s smart enough to know how much money he lost since he left the Red Sox,” Gammons said, noting Damon’s difficulty in selling his house in Brookline after he joined the Yankees. Gammons related a story in which he jokingly offered to switch houses with Damon and try to sell the house himself. Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter walked by and told Gammons to “stop picking on the animals. [Damon] has no clue.”

On Yankees’ closer Mariano Rivera:

“He’s never won an award, but if you took the Cy Young and MVP of the last 15 years, he’d probably sweep them both…He’s one of the most distinguished people I’ve ever met and I’m old enough that I can compare him to Cary Grant.”

With the end of the season looming, the Harvard men’s hockey team has a shot at redemption against local rival Boston College, who defeated the Crimson in a close 3-2 match in early December. The Beanpot game, scheduled today at TD Garden, will measure how far the Harvard team has come from the 10-game losing streak it was on when it last faced the Eagles. Since playing Boston College, the Crimson has improved its record from 1-8-2 to 5-11-3.

Although Harvard had a 27-26 shot advantage over the Eagles, Boston College scored two goals in less than three minutes in the first period, building a lead the Crimson could not overcome. After a netminder change in the second period, the Eagles were unable to score again, but with three goals already on the board, the damage had been done.

For Harvard to win in the rematch, it will need to generate the momentum it had in the waning minutes of the first game, and carry it through all three periods. Coming off a loss to conference rival Princeton, the setting is familiar. Boston College will have the chance to continue a Crimson losing streak once again.

Former football captain Carl Ehrlich ‘09 left the United States recently to continue playing football in Spain for the Valencia Firebats. While this may be old news, it is important to analyze the ramifications of such a move.

Ehrlich is currently playing for La Liga Nacional de Futbol Americano, a fairly recent league that started up in 1995 after gathering several organizations that had previous football experience. One of those teams was the Valencia Bats, a team composed mainly from the roster of the failed Cullera Giants team. The Bats joined the American Football League (not to be confused with the AFL that was merged into the NFL in 1969) and had a moderately successful season.

Competing with the AFL was the Catalana Football League, and so Spain’s football organizations realized that in order for football to even have a chance in Spain, the leagues needed to be united. The LGNA was created and has been a fairly strong organization since its inaugural season, adding five more teams for the 2010 season. Along with the league’s inception, the Bats changed their name to the current moniker. (More on the Firebats history can be found here, though you may need a translator).

Ehrlich joins a team that in recent years has made major strides to excel on the European football stage. The Firebats won the last three out of four LNFA titles, only failing to win it in 2008.

Because the LNFA is Spain’s top flight for football, the winner and runner-up get the chance to represent the league in the European Football League, the equivalent of the Champions League for soccer. The Firebats’ successes haven’t translated onto the big stage, though, and they have failed to win against many major European opponents. Austria’s Vienna Vikings and Swarco Raiders Tirol have captured the crown for the majority of the past decade, not letting any other country get the title since 2004.

The Firebats are looking to change things around by adding Ehrlich not only to their defensive line but to their offensive line as well. According to Valencia’s website, Ehrlich had a solid effort on both sides of the ball in his first Spanish game, getting a lot of action in its 14-6 victory at home. But it’ll be crucial for Ehrlich to adapt to the different tactics of the Firebats and the scrappy play and strict officiating of European football—he was ejected from his first game for clotheslining an opponent.

It used to be that people could just show up to a Harvard men’s basketball game. Now the market for tickets is as competitive as the summer job market.

Take this weekend: both of the Crimson’s games in New York have sold out—a Friday night contest at Columbia, and Saturday night’s game at Cornell, the first of two highly touted match-ups against the league’s two-time defending champions.

The Cornell game looked to be a attraction early on because the two are arguably the best and certainly the most visible teams in the Ivy League, with both having challenged top Division I programs so far this season, including Cornell’s 5-point loss to Kansas.

Columbia, meanwhile, has recent history with the Crimson, having beaten Harvard last season at home on a last-second jumper by current senior Kevin Bulger. Lions fans seem to be rushing to Levien Gym in hopes of seeing similar action. Harvard has emerged victorious only once in its last six trips to Levien Gym.

But it’s not just New York that’s going crazy for the Crimson. Tickets for Harvard’s home contests against the Killer P’s—Penn and Princeton—went up for sale today at 3 pm and are disappearing quickly.

According to senior running back Cheng Ho, who has been in contact with the Athletic Department, the 400 tickets allotted for undergraduate students have all been taken for the Princeton game, and the tickets for Penn are going fast.

Whether in the Big Apple, Ithaca, or Cambridge, Harvard basketball seems to be, for the time being, the biggest show in town.