Phil Rizzuto was not elected to the Hall of Fame until 37 years after his retirement from baseball.

Most people in the game acknowledged that the honor was long overdue the captain of the only team to ever win five consecutive World Series titles.

As I was walking back from yesterday's baseball game between Harvard and Boston College, I over-heard one of the players make a remark about how the team was not getting a lot of coverage in the Crimson.

After all, Harvard has won seven consecutive games--the team hopes to leave this weekend's twin double-headers against Dartmouth with a division title and a chance at its first Ivy League crown since 1985. Yet the team's student fan base remains a consistent twelve.

Why did it take so long for the Scooter to get the recognition he deserved? He lacked the heroic grace of a Joe Dimaggio or the majestic bat of a Mickey Mantle.

He did not have the stats--stats alone would indicate that he deserves the honor no more than a Bobby Bonds or an Al Oliver.

What Rizzuto did offer was a certain scrappiness that made him the envy of every manager in the league. The master of the sacrifice bunt, Rizzuto knew how to "manufacture a run."

When Harvard massacred Brown last weekend, I was digging up the player's stats on the weekend, looking for standout performances.

Usually when a team scores 38 runs in 4 games, some player ends up hitting .600 with a couple of dingers and 12 RBI.

While there were certainly impressive performances last weekend, there were too many little contributions to single out any one player.

Much to the dismay of at least one journalist in search of sensationalism, this team has been characterized all season by spreading the wealth among all its players.

A big part of winning as a team, and the element that won yesterday's game, is the willingness to sacrifice.

When someone on Harvard coach Joe Walsh's squad hits a sacrifice fly, bunts a runner over to third, or even hits a grounder to the right side of the infield with a runner at second and less than two outs, everyone on the bench leaves the dugout and walks halfway up the first baseline to congratulate the hitter on his out.

Phil Rizzuto made a career out of being congratulated on his outs.

Even at 5'9", he knew how to take out the shortstop to prevent a 4-6-3.