What can a team that won three Eastern Intercollegiate Baseball League championships in as many years possibly hope to do as an encore? That is the problem faced by coach Loyal Park and his 1974 version of the Harvard baseball team.

Last year the Crimson batmen stormed to a 34-3 regular season record and the NCAA Region I title before falling to Southern California and Georgia Southern in the college baseball World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.

This year Park has to fill the mighty large vacancies left by All-East pitcher Roz Brayton and the 1973 EIBL batting champion Kevin Hampe as well as hard slugging left fielder Hal Smith.

But luckily for the Crimson, six starters, including the entire infield, are returning to firm up the lineup. "Our real strength this year," coach Park said, "will be our defensive infield. We have everyone back from the unit that worked so well together last year."

Holding down the first base spot for Harvard again this year will be the duo of senior Joe Mackey and junior Leigh Hogan. Hogan sported a .308 season Eastern League average as the pair shared the duties on the 1973 squad.

Senior Ric LaCivita, All-Greater Boston League last year, is pegged for the second base position this spring. Second team All-East Ed Durso will be at shortstop and senior Jim Stoeckel will cover the hot spot at third.

Durso slashed out hits last year at a rate of .395, second in the league behind only teammate Hampe. Stoeckel was voted first team All-EIBL in '73 behind his slick glove work and a .335 bat (fourth in the league).

The outfield is still a little bit of a question mark for Park with four contenders for the three spots. Returning veterans Jimmy Thomas and Dave St. Pierre appear to have the leading track for starting positions with the remaining spot in contention by junior switch-hitter Scott Adzik and sophomore Leon Goetz.

The receiving end of the battery will be held down by Dan Williams and John Friar. Williams saw back-up action last year behind Rich Bridich while Friar sat out the year with a leg injury from football.

"We have the potential for two real strong catchers this year," Park said. "Williams and Friar are both big and strong and have good arms."

"Our biggest problem this year," Harvard pitching coach Bob Lincoln said, "is to find a number one stopper and a number four starter. We've got to find that one man we can count on to go out on any given day and win for us. And we have to find a fourth man in our starting rotation," he said.

The "number one stopper" will be filling in the oversized shoes left by Roz Brayton, first team All-East two years in a row for the Crimson and now in the Boston Red Sox organization.

Prime candidates for that mythical position are lettermen Mike O'Malley, Don Driscoll, and Milt Holt. O'Malley, all-GBL last year, sported a perfect 6-0 record with a brilliant .054 ERA, the third lowest in the nation.

Driscoll opened the '73 season with a sterling arm, but was injured mid-way through the season and only resumed work-outs the week of the region playoffs. A strong return to form by Driscoll could go a long way to improve Crimson title chances.

Holt, the only southpaw among the three starters, turned in some fine performances, especially towards the end of last spring.

Very important in Harvard considerations is ace reliever Norm Walsh. A righthander, Walsh was called upon again and again in the title stretch for the Crimson in 1973 to secure vital wins.

Lincoln will have to decide among a host of possibles to fill in the rest of the pitching staff. Terry Schlimbaum, a lefty, Steve Kitchen, a righthander, Frank LeBlanc another righthander, Jim Harold and Tom Pura, two lefties, are among the leading candidates for positions.

Also in contention are southpaws Keith Butler and Bob Larsen and righthander Nils Nilson, a junior.

"Let's face it," Park said, "in this league it is pitching that wins or loses games for you. We are concerned with the depth of our pitching and its consistency."

"Our problems right now are trying to gain this pitching depth," Park said, "and to determine the number one catcher."

"Talking about pitching, we won those last three titles on the pitching," Park said. "We had someone like Brayton we could call on for the big games. The season before that, we lost by one game, and you guessed it, it was the pitching that did us in."

The Crimson batmen will get their chance to try out the all-important pitching staff on the team's southern trip scheduled, as usual, for spring vacation.

"This year we are going to change our plans somewhat," Park said. "We're going to Atlanta first to play a few with Georgia Tech and then go on down to Daytona Beach where we were last year."

The Harvard baseball team traveled to Florida last year and came back with a sterling 13-0 record that left half of the coaches in this area amazed and the other half skeptical.

"13-0, that's a joke," Penn coach Bob Seddon said just before his team surprised Harvard 3-2 in its first game after returning. "Harvard will be hearing a lot about that during the year."

What many of the northeastern coaches did not really remember is that all of the southern schools begin their seasons the first week of March. By the time the Harvard squad gets to warmer climates, all of those teams will have played as many as ten or twelve games. That is quite a contrast from the Harvard players who have only donned gloves and carried bats within the cozy confines of Briggs Cage.

One advantage that the Crimson batmen have over much of their northern competition, though, is that their season begins immediately after they get back from the South. Columbia, for example, charges south in the middle of March for two weeks only to have to return to indoor practices for two more weeks when they got back. The Crimson, however, can go from playing field to playing field.

The Eastern League outlook calls for a tight race again this year. Pennsylvania, Dartmouth Cornell, and Brown as well as defending champion Harvard all look to be in the thick of the battle come the middle of May.

"Penn has to be favored," Park said. "They have their whole team back this year." The Quaker veterans are led by one of the finest pitchers in the East in Andy Muhlstock. Muhlstock recorded nine wins last year against two losses with a sizzling ERA of 1.69. He was the EIBL's leading winner and he pitched the most innings. He also sported a .344 batting average.

Cornell brought in a whopping 19 junior college transfers for this season and on that fact alone, looks to be strong. It was on a road trip to Cornell and Army last year that Harvard won the title, but it will take a very strong performance to repeat that sweep this year.

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.....