Harvard Splits With Columbia

Read all about it. Some thoughts...

* People Who Impressed Me:
1. Brad Unger, who undoubtedly deserves to be starting. A hard-luck loser today, Unger struggled early but settled in and consistently threw strikes. I'll put some video footage of him up later in the week if I get time.
2. Jake Bruton. He'd been having a solid spring, but I hadn't put a lot into that until getting to see why today. I'll put up some footage of him as well, but Jake has some zip on his fastball I don't remember being there, and was incredibly efficient (including a six or seven pitch inning).
3. Tom Stack-Babich, who homered early in the second game and seems over his difficult first season.

* Eric Eadington: In a Sons of Bart Brush multimedia first, here is Boomer Eadington's first-ever inning of Ivy League baseball, a 1-2-3 start against the Lions. Great mound presence, good fastball, and a curve that made some hitters straight up look silly at some points (I may post a couple more of the more interesting swings from later in the game).

Unfortunately, things went a bit downhill from here, and Boomer never looked comfortable again. He was wilder even than the boxscore indicates, and seemed vulnerable to aggressive baserunning (the "ba-a-a-ack!" calls--accurate ones--came quite a bit earlier on pickoffs than one would like). That said, it was freezing, and he's from California.

* Andrew Prince, who just looks like a kid who's going to hit a lot of home runs, has hamstring issues that kept him out of action this weekend. Hopefully they won't nag for too long.

* Assistant Coach Gary Donovan was tossed for arguing early in the second game, and Head Coach Joe Walsh followed after protesting the ejection. I won't describe what happened immediately after that, but let's just say that as a fan of the late 90s-early 2000s Mets, it warmed my heart.

* I'd never been to a game at Columbia, but it is immediately my favorite road ballpark, as it is easily the worst. The field hangs on the small patch on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Harlem River and is a victim of both the river's constraints and those of the football field adjacent to it. Deep center is about 300 feet--tops, there is almost no foul territory on either line, you can homer into the river, and every game features a continuous cacophany of Metro North trains running on the other side of the river between Grand Central and points north punctuated by the occasional loud boat running alongside. It is absolutely charming.

Spring Break Opener: THE Ohio State University 5, Harvard 3

First, a disclaimer: Harvard's impressive victory over Notre Dame two weeks ago offered a window into what this year's Crimson edition is capable of, but always be mindful of the larger purpose of Joe Walsh's "take all comers" approach to non-conference scheduling. It is the 52-ounce bat you swing in the on-deck circle to get ready for the Ivy season. Adjust your expectations accordingly during the coming week's breakneck slate in Florida, and you'll be in much better position to enjoy the ride.

Now that you're in the proper frame of mind, meet the Ohio State Buckeyes (13-3), preseason favorite to win the Big Ten and bona fide aspirant to take in Omaha's many pleasures later this summer. You may remember them from such winning streaks as their last 12 games. It turns out their highly regarded weekend rotation features more than a couple guys whom parts of Columbus consider Greg Oden-in-stirrups. Today, Harvard (2-3) faced three linchpins of that vaunted staff in a single nine-inning game. The box score suggests this was as tough a challenge as you'd think -- but only for the first eight innings. In the ninth -- and here's that silver lining that portends well against the more relevant Red Rolfe foes -- the Crimson torched OSU's sophomore manchild Jake Hale for a three-run, two-out rally. Harvard even got the tying run to the plate before falling, 5-3. More on the near-comeback in a second.

Shawn Haviland started for Harvard and got tagged with the loss, despite showing some pluck against a tough lineup. Kurt Svoboda, as usual, tells the story in good detail here.

These games against elite programs are always interesting for acquainting you with names you'll eventually hear again in the June amateur draft. (Before Craig Hansen was a first round pick for the Red Sox in 2005, he was pitching in the Metrodome against Harvard earlier that spring.) OSU lefthander Cory Luebke might be another of those guys. The Buckeyes ace and Big Ten POY contender was draft-eligible as a sophomore last year on account of being old for his grade. He went in the 22nd rd (due to signability considerations likely), opted to stay in school, and today continued to make his case for a higher-round selection this year with six shutout innings against Harvard, striking out eight. Only Brendan Byrne and Matt Rogers managed hits.

OSU also gave Harvard a two-inning dose of another of its weekend starters, JB Shuck. All he did was keep Harvard hitless in the seventh and eighth.

Then entered 6-foot-7 Hale, the Buckeyes' imposing answer to Jonathan Papelbon in that he has moved from frontline starter as a freshman to lights-out closer as a soph. (Witness the sub-1.00 ERA to go along with four saves.) With no save possibility in order Friday, Hale may have been treating his appearance in a 5-0 game as a live bullpen session. But after a walk to Steffan Wilson and a wall-ball double by an ever-impressive Tom Stack-Babich, torque specialist Andrew Prince socked a three-run blast to right that gave Harvard some life. Byrne then reached on a base hit before Hale induced a groundout to end the game.

With that, Day 1 of the Crimson's spring break gauntlet ended on something of a positive note. As always, we welcome eyewitness accounts in the comments section. Congrats to Prince on his first Harvard homer.

Harvard meets another Big Ten entry, Northwestern, later today. Get your live stats here.

Weekend 2: Cancelled

Bummer. Would've been awful sweet to take it to Notre Dame again on the actual St. Patrick's Day, but such are the dangers of being a northeast school--even your road games in sunny climates are at risk in March.

But we do have a little rain delay theater for you. First, this read about Ben Crockett '02, who has caught on with the Red Sox, albeit not in the way some of us once hoped. Injuries are injuries, but in the minds of many, it'll always be a Saturday afternoon in Cambridge and he'll always be dealing at O'Donnell, with batter after batter reaching for that ridiculous curve. Anyway, enjoy that read.

More: One of the commenters who was at last week's games offered some additional reads on the team from last weekend via e-mail (bartbrush@gmail.com), and I include a few here.

[Andrew] Prince looks like the Mo Vaughn of the Ivy league right now. He has basically the same swing, getting no weight transfer. However there is some serious torque going on with a relatively compact swing. He could hit a lot of hard liners or tower fly balls.

Jake Bruton had pretty good numbers in long relief. Fastball riding in on righties with a 12-6 curve ball also slightly backing up. He could have found his role there.

[Brad] Unger [fresh off basketball season] seems to be building up arm strength but falls behind on a lot of hitters as can be seen in the play by play. He can't use the changeup effectively when he is always behind in the count and with runners on base.

[Justin] Roth can swing the bat.