Okay, when was the last time a Harvard baseball team went through its first 13 games undefeated?

The answer is 1902: in the intervening 61 years, no varsity squad has made it this far through the season without at least one defeat. This afternoon the 1960 varsity tries to make it 14 in a row against Boston College in a home game.

It's not too difficult to see how the team has made it this far. Reason A is pitching. No one has scored more than three runs against Harvard this year; three opponents last weekend scored a total of two runs, only one of them earned.

Paul Del Rossi, who has the best Harvard pitching record in modern times, has a 5-0 mark this year and an 0.98 earned run average--and that's the worst E.R.A. on the staff. The pitchers as a whole have an 0.74 average.

Pitching hasn't been Harvard's only strength though. The hitting has been steady and the base running spectacular (34 stolen bases, 10 by John Dockery).

Furthermore, the return of Tom Bilodeau at shortstop has, according to coach Norm Shepard, "tightened the infield a lot." Bilodeau played errorless ball in three games during the weekend after missing 10 games because of an luxury.

Lee Sargent (3-0, 0.68) will do the pitching today in a game that should decide the Greater Boston League title. Harvard (1-0) leads the league with B.C. (3-1) second.

B.C. is a good ball club; the Eagles have two top hitters in third baseman Tom Anderson (.368) and catcher Kevin Mahoney; (.333) Pitching for them today will be senior righthander Buddy Carter, 1-2 in three games this year.

Carter could have a tough time out-pitching Sargent, who has yielded a total of two earned runs in four appearances. The senior righthander has pitched some good games in his first year on the mound (he was the starting third baseman last year); using control (4 walks in 28 innings) he has beaten Richmond 2-1, Boston University 8-3, and M.I.T., 20-1.

The B.C. game is the last in a series of three home contests this week; Eastern League powers Army and Navy arrive this weekend. After that there will be only two home games (and six away contests) remaining in the season.