"If I feel one drop of rain, just one drop," home plate umpire Giles. Threadgold said after two and a half hours and only six innings of yesterday's Harvard-Yale baseball game. "I'm going to call it."
At that point, Harvard had a 13-3 lead, Yale had paraded four pitchers to the mound and it was getting cold and dark in a brisk wind blowing across Soldiers' Field.
That drop of rain never came, but Threadgold, mercifully called the game anyway an hour later. After seven and a half innings of little league, with Harvard ahead 18-9. "With nine outs to go." Threadgold said after the aborted contest, "we could have been there another two hours."
Everyone in Harvard's starting nine collected at least one hit, and pinch hitter Mike Lynch threw in a home run with the strong breeze in the seventh off Jim Nell Ed Durso, Leigh Hogan, Joe Sciolis, Barry Cronin and Dan Williams each picked up a pair of hits and Durso. Williams and Lunch led in RBIs with three each.
Harvard starter Don Driscoll chipped in a single to his cause, but tired after six and a third, a after allowing four earned runs on 13 hits. But he didn't really need to have his best stuff yesterday to get the victory.
Driscoll's teammates slaked him to a quick 1-0 lead in the first as Jim Thomas tripled and scored on an error by catcher. Andy walker trying to throw out Durso on a steal. Harvard added four more in the third on a walk, singles by Durso Hogah and Cronin, and a triple by Sciolla.
Yale starter Greg Daniels was asked to remain in the dugout for the Harvard fourth and Mackenale began his pitcher an-inning binge, starting with John Reynolds. Reynolds huded the fourth and gave up two more runs on three walks, a wild pitch and a sacrifice fly.
Mark McAndrews ascended the mound for the fifth and allowed only one run after a three-base throwing error by third baseman Pete Riccio and an RBI single by Williams. But despite being Yale's most efficient pitcher up to that point. McAndrew was lifted for a pinch hitter in the, fifth (who struck, out) and Harry Rosenthal was offered the mound for the sixth inning.
McAndrews should have been kept on Rosenthal was batted around for six hits and five runs in the inning. Yale, meanwhile was beginning to get to Driscoll and touched him up for three runs in the top of the sixth and then three more with just one out in the seventh. Coach Loyal Park then sent Nils Nilsen out to retire the final two in the seventh and Terry Schlimbaum to start the eighth. Schlimbaum was rocked for Yale's final three runs before retiring a batter, so Frank LeBlanc came in to mop up.
By that time, Harvard had amassed a nine-run lead on another five-run inning in the seventh off Neil and Charlie Castighone and Threadgold had seen enough of what was supported to be Eastern League baseball.
The Crimson takes on a hapless Brown squad in a double header today on soldiers Field at 1 p.m. while Threadgold goes up to Dartmouth to umpire a twin bill between the Big Green and Yale.
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