There’s nothing like swapping baseball stories with a future Hall of Famer to lift a slumping team’s spirits.

Hardball guru and Baseball Tonight analyst Peter Gammons appeared at the Kennedy School of Government last night to discuss the role of baseball in American society. Harvard second baseman Faiz Shakir had the honor of introducing Gammons at the start of the event, which was sponsored by the Institute of Politics. Gammons’ talk addressed some of the game’s more beleaguered stars, including one who Shakir knows quite well—maligned Cardinals southpaw Rick Ankiel.

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One of those struggling major leaguers is Rick Ankiel, the 21-year-old phenom out of St. Louis. The, who played his high school ball at Florida, went up to bat . He even managed a handful of hits off the , an achievement which earned some praise from Gammons last night.

After last night’s discussion concluded, Gammons stuck around awhile to chat with Shakir and Harvard teammates Ben Crockett and Mark Mager. The three-time national sportswriter of the year offered some encouraging words to the Harvard players, who have seen their team stumble out to a 6-18 start to the season.

“It’s always great to hear stories about guys who are going through the same types of things you are,” said Shakir, who is hitting just .162 this season. “It’s good motivation. There are a lot of guys in the pros struggling just like us.”

The Crimson will hope to finally overcome those troubles when it faces Maine at 3 p.m. today at O’Donnell Field. Also this weekend, the Harvard batsmen are scheduled to resume Ivy action with back-to-back doubleheaders against Cornell and defending Ivy champ Princeton. The Crimson will look for a clean sweep on the weekend to ensure that it doesn’t avoid falling behind in the Red Rolfe Division. After splitting with Penn and Columbia one week ago, Harvard is tied with Yale and Brown atop the standings.

“Taking all four [Ivy games] is definitely the goal,” Shakir said. “We thought we should taken all four last weekend.”