“One of the things with him is that as the season gets going, he just gets hotter and hotter,” Harvard coach Joe Walsh says. “By the end of the season he’s one of the toughest outs.”

The bar, to put it plainly, has been set high.

“Well I’ve thought about that,” Mann says, “and [last year] just kind of came out of nowhere, really. It wasn’t something I was planning on. That wasn’t on my mind even most of last season. So it’s just something I’m not going to think about again this season.”

Pardon teammates and observers, but Mann’s 2004 production looked like the latest chapter in a sustained pattern of success.

“Sky didn’t get as much ink as I did for breaking that record,” Farkes says. “But we definitely push each other whether we admit it or not. I know we’re always watching each other’s [batting practice], and I’m thinking, ‘Oh, I’ve got to pick it up a little bit. Sky’s hitting balls into the trees again.’”

“It’s really fun to watch him take BP,” Farkes says, adding one word for Mann’s power: “incredible.”

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In reality, that’s akin to earning praise from future NFL passer Ryan Fitzpatrick for arm strength. But that’s what captain Sky does: reap the respect of his peers. During the offseason, Mann became the cinch choice for captain of Harvard baseball. Teammates raved about the senior’s preternatural diplomatic chops.

“He can feel that pulse of the team,” Farkes says, “just the whole attitude and what kids are feeling.”

To hear Mann tell it, earning the captainship was sort of like stepping in at catcher when Junior showed up late—in other words, a timely stroke of luck.

“Well I’m a senior, number one,” he says, bashful. “There’s only a few of us. I don’t really know. It just kind of worked out, I guess.”

Really, becoming captain, like developing into a young catcher, was less about felicity and more about Mann.

With devastating natural talent and a knack for leadership—“It helps when you have a guy that vocal in the locker room,” junior Josh Klimkiewicz says, “[who] also puts up those kinds of numbers”—Mann has already made a difference.

“The type of person he is,” Farkes says, “it’s just what you’d expect from him.”

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