Park and his team lost their grip in the second game, however, as Yale utilized Harvard starter Jamie Werly's wildness to score three quick runs. The Bulldogs added two more for a 5-1 lead by the sixth inning. But Crimson bats came alive in the home half of the sixth, which eventually found Harvard with the bases loaded, one out, and two runs behind at 5-3.
Bannish, having switched roles for Game Two, now came up as a pinch hitter. The versatile junior promptly stroked a single to left, but strangely only one run scored. The next two batters failed to produce with the sacks filled, and three more went down the next inning. There was no bear hug after this one, a 5-4 loss, the squad's third in the Eastern League.
With not even enough time to second-guess, the team was on a plane to West Point less than 15 hours later. Harvard started its second and final Big Weekend with a superbly played 10-3 thrashing of the Cadets. Clifford on the mound was even stronger than in his Princeton performance, and Jenkins started his first game of the season and responded with a long triple to left, Meanwhile in center field. Singleton added yet another exclamation point to his outstanding all-around season with a diving catch to quell an Army uprising.
It came down to a doubleheader the next day in Ithaca. New York versus league-leading Cornell. Sure there were three, possibly five other games left on the schedule, but it all came down to the two games of May 14. Harvard had to take both games, as the Big Red with two losses and Columbia with three already occupied the top two spots in the EIBL, and consequently the two playoff positions.
Stewart notched his seventh win of the season in the first game, as a 19-hit Harvard attack paced the Crimson's 12-3 romp. Stenhouse popped yet another round-tripper, his eighth of the season.
Unfortunately, when a team is in the must-win situation that Harvard was, the most important win is always the next one.
Deadlocked 1-1 after the regulation seven innings had passed, the Crimson raced two runs home in the first extra frame on the strength of a triple by freshman first baseman Mark Bingham. Starter Steve Baloff, who had returned the past season from a leave of absence to provide Park with yet another strong right arm, was ready to burst his fastballs by Cornell for just three more outs. Baloff did just that, but two sloppy fielding plays, events which nobody had seemed to expect or worry about during the other 25 games of the season, were made the in the infield and Cornell clinched victory for itself and disqualification for Harvard with a 4-3 triumph.
The rest of the season was played out with anti-climactic results but in the same intense fashion with which it had begun. The following Monday an underrated Brandeis squad ("They proved to be the strongest team we faced all year," Park said) snatched the Greater Boston League crown from Harvard with a 5-2 win at Soldiers Field. It was the same day when Park found out that his team had not received an at-large berth for the District One playoffs, as they were overlooked in favor of Boston College and UMass, two teams that each had a record poorer than the Crimson.
But Park is not a bitter man and his teams reflect the class with which they play. Harvard closed out its season with a twinball split against Dartmouth and with that the baseball season became a Cinderella story that ended just after midnight.
True, the chapter is over, but the book is far from finished. All factors indicate that this past season's 22-7 record will be the team's poorest for at least a couple of years. Only one starter, Captain Tom Joyce, will be missing next year, and Park finds himself with an overabundance of substitutes there. The all-freshman infield of Bingham, Stenhouse, Burke, St. John and Rick Pierce "should be the best defensive infield I've ever had at Harvard in another year," Park noted. Singleton will continue his leadership in center field and everywhere else. The arms of Stewart, Clifford, Baloff, McOsker Bannish and Larry Brown cannot help but mature, and will eventually provide Park with at least one or two "stoppers" like Milt Holt or Roz Brayton of Harvard champions past.
"Our two years of experimenting are gone," Park summarized; "We'll leave nothing to chance now. We know exactly where we're headed." Anyone who has watched or read about Harvard baseball also knows where the team's talent, confidence and desire can and very well might take them. True, this analysis and appraisal is dated, but one will never understand how far this ballclub can go without a good look at how far it has already come