Brown is returning a veteran ball club led by junior short stop sensation Bill Almon, and outfielders Mike Cirullo and Ted Schoff. Almon was a first team All-East in 1973 beating out heavy hitting Crimson shortstop Durso for the spot. Cirullo and Schoof garnered positions on the second team All-EIBL behind their strong arms and impressive hitting.
Dartmouth will probably be right up there with the leaders in May. Traditionally a strong finishing club, the Green won 12 of their last 14 games last spring. Dartmouth, a good fielding team, had the best fielding average (.963) in the East last season.
Locally, Northeastern and Providence appear to be strong. Both clubs made their way to the NCAA Region I playoffs held in Fenway Park last year and both have the capability to do it again.
Providence relies on good and solid pitching, while Northeastern is one of the best hitting clubs in the area. In 1973, they had six men who had season averages over .300.
The final standings in the Eastern League found Harvard ahead of Penn by a game and a half. Yale was three games behind Harvard's 11-2 pacesetting mark, and Cornell was three and a half games back.
In the Greater Boston League, Harvard finished ahead of the Northeastern power squadron with a 6-1 GBL record against Northeastern's 5-2 mark in a race that narrowed down between the two teams in the final week of the season.
In years before, Harvard has traditionally fielded a strong baseball club. In addition to taking the last three Eastern titles, the Crimson batmen have captured the pennant three more times in the last fifteen years. But in the twenty years before this, the Harvard baseball team underwent a title drought even though it was in the process of compiling the best composite record of any team in the league.
Since Harvard entered the Eastern Baseball League in 1933, it has won 218 games as opposed to 148 losses for a winning percentage of .596. Dartmouth has the next best percentage with 240 wins and 180 losses (not to mention 4 tie games) for a percentage of .571.
"I think this is probably a reconstructing year for us," Park said. "You know, I sure don't want to call it a rebuilding year--that is just what coaches say when they think they are going to have a losing year and they want excuses early--" but we can't get too confident until we prove ourselves."
"Like I said, the potential is there, if we can just bring it out and all work together, we'll go a long way," Park said.
Like hopefully to an Eastern title, a region championship, and who knows.....