It was a Saturday afternoon, November 23, 1968, when Harvard tied Yale, 29-29, in THE GAME of all THE GAMES, and when sophomore receiver Pete Varney was mobbed in the endzone by incredulous Harvard loyalists for catching the winning conversion pass with no time left on the clock.

Last week in Sarasota, Fla., that same Pete Varney sat on the Chicago White Sox bullpen bench, a major league baseball player and a considerable distance from Adams House, where he lived for three years, and Soldiers Field, where he spent a good deal of his undergraduate career.

On this particular day, Varney's employers, the Chicago White Sox, were working against the Pittsburgh Pirates in a rare Wednesday afternoon doubleheader. But Varney's day wouldn't begin until the start of the second game, and when you're a professional baseball player and you're not working, you're sitting.

In Varney's case, though, he's usually sitting or crouching even when he is working, because Pete Varney is a catcher, which is not exactly what you expect of a Harvard history major.

Varney, however, has been catching more than pitched baseballs recently. As the White Sox player representative he's had to handle the verbal abuse from the owners this spring, which has been almost as tough as Wilbur Wood's knuckleballs.

"I inherited that job last May when Stan Bahnsen was traded to Oakland," Varney said last week in reference to his extra responsibility, one which compelled him to come to Florida a month early for the player negotiations.

As for his primary task, Varney will most likely spend the summer alternating with Brian Downing (no, not Brian Dowling) behind the White Sox plate as he did last season, his first full one in the majors.

The road from Loyal Park to White Sox stadium had first taken Varney to such tourist traps as Ashville, N.C., Tucson, Ariz., and Des Moines, Iowa. After having received his masters degree in minor league baseball, Varney earned a spot with the big boys.

"I knew that I wanted to be a professional baseball player in college," Varney said while watching the White Sox defeat the Pirates, 4-2, in the first game of the twinbill. "I had spoken to the Dallas [as in football] Cowboys as a free agent, but they didn't offer me any money," so Varney signed with the Chisox a month after leading the Crimson batmen to the 1971 College World Series.

Then came grad school, where Varney gradually worked his way up from Class A to AA to AAA (in baseball grad school, they don't even give out B's, much less C's), and which eventually led to his place under the Florida sun on the White Sox bullpen bench in Sarasota.

Now the first game was just about ending, but Varney's day was only beginning; new Sox manager Paul Richards had tabbed Varney to catch the nightcap. Before donning the tools of ignorance, Varney admitted, "Sure, they rib you a little about going to Harvard, but it's not too bad. Most of the guys have a college education, anyway."

During the game, Varney went one for three at the plate, lining a double to left field in the eighth inning. Chicago lost, 3-0, but Varney performed admirably behind the plate. Is his position secure? "I hope so," he said, "but you never know."

The memory of THE GAME lingers on.