Interview with Bart Brush, Part III

SoBB: Did you ever swing the bat at Harvard?

BB: Unfortunately no. I was 0 for 2 (struck out and reached on an error) as a freshman at Bucknell. I think I skipped the pitcher’s HR derby both years because my roommate got us tee times at Duxbury Country Club. In my defense, I always cleared it with Forst if I was debating whether to skip practice to play golf.

SoBB: You transferred out of Harvard your freshman year, but later transferred back. Can you describe the events surrounding your transfers?

BB: Not much to it really. I was really unhappy at Harvard my first semester. Freshman football at Harvard in the fall of 1993 was the biggest joke I had ever been a part of athletically. So I contacted the football coach who recruited me at Bucknell and gave it a shot there for the second semester. I pitched for Bucknell that spring (1994) and was 1-4 in about 45 innings as a weekend starter for the 10-25 Bison. I did set the Patriot League single-season record for hit batsmen that year.

Ironically, that team eventually got pretty good. They went on to win the Patriot league in 1997 and advance to the NCCAs as well. I really enjoyed Bucknell and everything about it but as I started to get more mature and get some perspective I realized how silly it would be to give up a Harvard education. So I returned to Cambridge for the start of my sophomore year and didn’t play baseball in 1995 because I was a transfer.

SoBB: Please give us a scouting report on yourself (best pitch, speed of fastball, anything interesting about your delivery, etc).

BB: Nothing remarkable besides a curve that I thought could be pretty good on occasion. I never knew for sure but I bet I never hit 83 on a radar gun. Coach Walsh joked that my delivery was so ugly (I always threw way across my body) that the photo of me mid-delivery on the 1997 schedule card put him at a disadvantage when recruiting. It brought into question his ability to teach pitchers proper mechanics.

SoBB: What do you do now?

BB: I work in the Debt Capital Markets group at PNC Bank in Pittsburgh. More importantly, I coach 13-14 year old baseball. I would bet that my pitchers are the only ones in the league who have a balk move.

SoBB: Describe Harvard baseball in five words or less.

BB: Every game counts.

SoBB: Who was the most talented guy you played with at Harvard?

BB: All-around (5-tools) it had to be Brian Ralph.

Although in the college game, I’ve not seen many shortstops as good defensively as David Forst or many first basemen as good defensively as Pete Albers. Those two guys saved all us pitchers a lot of runs.

On the mound, Quinn Schaffer might have been the most physically talented despite an abbreviated career.

SoBB: How has having a blog named after you affected your relationship with the ladies?

BB: My wife and sister make fun of me about it. Other than that, as you might imagine, I’ve seen no effect.

We'd like to thank Bart for allowing us to learn more about himself and the teams he played on.