So you’re Harvard Coach Joe Walsh, and it’s time to make out your Opening Day lineup card. Where, you wonder, should you plug in your slap-artist second baseman Faiz Shakir—a career .291 hitter and the team’s leader in stolen bases last season?

Last, of course.

Last? Well, when you have one of the league’s best contact hitters in senior Mark Mager (who struck out just once every 9.5 plate appearances in 2001) and on-base machine Javy Lopez (.400 OBP last year) pegged for the top two spots in the order, then the nine-hole suddenly seems like the perfect fit. For each cycle through the batting order after the first one, you have three table-setters instead of two.

“The eight and nine hitters in our lineup are basically our second top of the order,” Mager says.

In that case, you might consider Shakir Harvard’s second leadoff hitter.

“For our team, the first and the ninth hitter are basically interchangeable,” explains Lopez, who has seen time in both spots. “What Coach Walsh tries to do is evenly distribute the speed throughout the lineup to stay out of the double play.”

That philosophy works well with Harvard’s roster, full of smart, fleet-footed hitters who can hit in any situation. Shakir is no exception.

“Faiz can do a lot of things—he can hit-and-run and work the count,” Mager said. “He’s real versatile.”

Shakir also has a history of doing damage out of the ninth hole.

Three years ago, Harvard was trailing 4-3 in the ninth inning of the deciding game of its Ivy championship series against Princeton. The Crimson was just two outs away from elimination, and the Tigers had their top reliever on the hill.

With the bases loaded, up to the plate strode Shakir—all 5 feet, 9 inches of him.

“I was looking to see if Coach was going to call for someone else off the bench,” he recalls. “But I looked over at him [in the third base coach’s box] and he just clapped his hands and said, ‘Let’s go.’”

It was an important vote of confidence for Shakir, who hadn’t expected to be in the lineup at all that day.

Mostly known for his defense, Shakir had gotten the starting nod in the first game of the series after bone chips sidelined regular Peter Woodfork ’99, but he had a less than spectacular outing. Shakir struck out twice and made an unsightly throwing error on a ground ball to second.

When Woodfork was declared healthy enough to play in game two, Shakir sat. He wasn’t expecting much better when he arrived at the ballpark for the decisive third game—especially when, upon first glancing at the lineup card posted in the clubhouse, he saw Woodfork’s name penciled in at the top of the order.