O’Donnell Field sits in the shadow of the football stadium, and on some game days the trees behind the outfield fence will outnumber spectators five-to-one. Lentz will get a closer look at those trees than he would have imagined coming in as a rookie. Last year, a freshman named Schuyler Mann emerged in Lentz’s stead at catcher, producing hit after hit and calling enough superb ball games that benching him would border on the criminal. He and Lentz will now platoon, with Lentz playing some games at first base and, when Trey Hendricks isn’t pitching, presumably the outfield.
Lentz is asked about this situation. “I think Sky, with his ability to hit the ball, would play anywhere,” he says. “I’m more than happy to teach him what I can about catching. He’s got all the talent in the world so to me it’s pretty exciting to have someone around to teach some things to.”
It’s about teaching now for Lentz, who now finds himself the most senior of the seniors, the guy whose picture is on the scheduling cards Harvard hands out. He speaks with excitement of the “good kids” who will play as freshmen this year, and with respect and pride of his fellow seniors, hardworking veterans like Matt Self and Ryan Tsujikawa.
“He’s come a long way since that freshman year, both on the field and off the field, and I’m real proud to say that,” Walsh says. “I’ll tell you what, that kid’s come a long ways to become what I think right now is a very talented, hard-nosed kid who’s got a lot of leadership abilities on that baseball field. And I don’t throw that term ‘leadership’ around real easily.”
When it comes to leadership abilities off the field, neither would Brian Lentz.
“I think that I am probably the last person in the world to give anybody here advice that doesn’t directly involve baseball and baseball playing,” Lentz says. “So I don’t give any advice. The advice I’d give is to take advantage of it and enjoy it, and they’ll be fine without any advice from me regarding anything other than baseball.”
How about career advice, then? Lentz had to shake the scouts off with a stick back in high school, using a baseball intermediary to call off the dogs and make it clear he was going to college. The scouts will still talk to him, but they may have to call ahead to find out which games he’s catching. Does the regret list extend there?
“I wouldn’t say that I regret any of those decisions,” Lentz says. “When I made them I might not have known how different the two choices would be. I guess I saw myself as doing both, when in fact that may not be the case. But growing up I played sports to get into the best school I could get into, not as a way to make a living, and I think if I could do it all over again, I’d do the same thing.”
Sports as a way to make a living could very well still happen, of course. Walsh rattles off the names of three players from the region who were drafted by Major League teams last year and says that Lentz has a better chance than any of them. Lentz talks to scouts occasionally now but says he has no real sense of his prospects. Nor does he mind much; as he sits on the rocks and watches Harvard and the world go by, Lentz casually notes that he’s “one of the few people around here walking around without a job” lined up for next year.
“It’s something I plan on doing,” Lentz says of playing professionally. “I can’t hang around here any longer and play baseball. So this being my last year, my last college season, I’m going to take advantage of it like it’s my last baseball season. Whatever happens in the summertime to me is gonna be more a matter of something to do after school.”
Lentz is asked about his relationship with the team, having been gone for a year and suddenly surrounded by new faces. Most of the starters he last played alongside are gone.
“I got along with everyone I ever played with here,” Lentz says. “The guys on the team now, they don’t know me as well, so there might be a little more of a mystery for them.”
The thought makes him grin. Tennessee Williams once wrote that, “Some mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one’s own character to himself.” Lentz seems to believe it, seems to enjoy being somewhat mysterious to those around him and seems at peace with having made what some would see as a mystifying choice to stay the college baseball course at Harvard several times over.
He seems content with the what-ifs as well—that his stint with Harvard, for all its ups and downs, is nearly over, and that baseball holds one last thrilling chance at that elusive Ivy title.
Even New England Marches eventually get their acts together, and the inevitable sets in. Out of all the tumult emerge warmth and baseball games and caps and gowns.
—Staff writer Martin S. Bell can be reached at msbell@fas.harvard.edu.