The varsity baseball team opened its defense of the Eastern League championship in a most inauspicious fashion yesterday, absorbing a 15-6 pasting at the hands of Navy.

A large delegation of medal-bedecked Academy brass looked on approvingly as the Midshipmen pounded four Harvard pitchers for 17 hits, and rolled up the biggest run-total achieved against a Crimson team in several years.

Joe Bellino, a blocky catcher, was the leading Navy batsman, rattling out four hits in five tries and driving home four runs. Bellino is a potential All-America as a football halfback, and hails from nearby Winchester. Harvard originally had designs upon him, but he is one of that regrettably large group of local athletes who did not measure up to College admission standards.

Crimson Hitting Respectable

The Crimson's hitting was respectable enough; but its fielding left something to be desired, and the pitching, obviously, was woefully poor.

Chet Boulris had three safeties for the varsity, including a long wrong-field home run. George Harrington also made three hits, and center-fielder Charlie Leamy, usually no terror at the plate, contributed two triples to the losing cause. Singles by Mouse Kasarjian, Charlie Ravenel, and Doug Brown comprised the remainder of the Crimson's offensive efforts.

The varsity stayed in the game for four innings. It began well, scoring two runs in the first and one in the second, and sending a good Navy pitcher to an early shower in the process.

Meanwhile, however, Navy was begin- ning its own offensive fireworks, scoring two runs in the home-half of both the first and the second innings. The count remained 4-3 until the fifth, when Navy pushed across three more tallies.

Rally Knocks Out Cook

Crimson starter Wally Cook was knocked out in the midst of this rally, which was built around four singles, a walk, and a balk. The last of these misfortunes was charged against Cook's reliever, Dave Kipp; and it provoked some minor objections from coach Norman Shepard. Strolling back to the dugout after a brief conference with the umpires, Shepard received the razz from a group of Naval officers sitting in the stands nearby. "We rely on you for our security," Shepard retorted before taking a seat. This apparently stopped the jeering, but the Navy players proceeded to make things increasingly insecure for the Crimson.

Seven Navy Runs

It was in the seventh that they really lowered the boom. Six singles, two triples, and a walk produced seven Navy runs in this inning, as neither Kipp nor Renny Johnston was able to produce any effective pitching. This mammoth splurge secured the game for the Middies, and rendered single runs by the varsity in the sixth, eighth, and ninth innings of no real consequence.

All-in-all, it was a discouraging afternoon for the Crimson, but not really a humiliating one, for Navy has a fine team and might well go on to win the League championship