It’s been a long time coming.

Gone is the injury which cut his stellar summer league season frustratingly short.

Gone is the all-too-familiar platoon situation, which he shared with eventual Vanderbilt transfer Mickey Kropf as a freshman, and then All-Ivy selection Brian Lentz ’03 as a sophomore.

Gone is the time of an offensive power which tended to surface in mere flashes, teasing his teammates and torturing opponents.

The road to this point has sure taken some odd turns, winding from his native Trumbull, Conn. all the way to his family’s new home in Corvallis, MT. It even stopped over in Kenai, AK before ultimately running back east to Cambridge.

But finally—after spending his first two years at Harvard doubling as both catcher and designated hitter—junior backstop Schuyler Mann at last has home plate all to himself.

And by all accounts, it’s been a long time coming.

THE MANN BEHIND THE MASK

Sitting comfortably at a table in Harvard Square’s Au Bon Pain, Mann is soft-spoken and modest, careful to avoid sweeping predictions about a season just underway.

“Yeah, I have higher expectations for myself than I’ve had in the past couple years,” he concedes, pressed about the three home runs he just belted in two games against Air Force and Texas Tech. “But the conditions there were so special. I don’t think any of us could have really expected to put up such high numbers.”

While such an unassuming, down-to-earth demeanor is typical for Mann, it seems curiously unbefitting for the player who has found success ever since he put on a Harvard uniform. The quiet attitude belies his numbers, his accolades, his reputation as a baseball force. All of it.

But broach the subject of Sky Mann to his teammates—the prime beneficiaries of his production—and they’ll sing you a conspicuously more candid song.

“Without a doubt, Schuyler is the most talented catcher I’ve ever played with,” sophomore second baseman Zak Farkes says. “And we had Brian Lentz last year. For me growing up, all you heard was Brian Lentz—he was a couple years ahead of me, a Massachusetts guy, and he was all-everything in Massachusetts, three sports, great athlete. But Schuyler, just talent-wise, is far and away the best I’ve ever seen.”

Then, Farkes will tell you what, precisely, the catcher just can’t bring himself to blurt out—what most in the Ivy League have long been afraid of.

“He can hit, he proved it in the first weekend,” he says. “And he’s going to continue doing that all season. He’s that good.”