***

At Harvard—a place not normally associated with the plucky underdog—Walsh inherited a baseball team that lacked discipline and was unfamiliar with success. So while he had an endowed position and more financial security than he had ever experienced in his life, it was no time to remove the chip from his shoulder.

The first call Walsh received in his new office—which sported a “desk” made from a door resting on two file cabinets—came from a lawyer in Texas whose son had previously expressed interest in playing at Harvard.

“Coach, my son is thinking about going to Yale,” the lawyer said, “and I just noticed that the Yale coach has a professional background and you don’t. What is your background?”

“Well, I’ll give you my immediate background,” Walsh responded. “For the last 24 hours I’ve been in this office with a bottle of 409 cleaning fluid. Your son can go to Yale, and when we see him in the spring we’re gonna rip him.”

That season, Walsh instilled the same fiery spirit in a previously-lackluster Crimson team.

“He came in and changed the culture and the attitude of the program,” says David Forst ’98, now Oakland’s assistant general manager.

Harvard won the Ivy League title in 1997 and 1998, and the lawyer’s son never beat the Crimson, according to Walsh.

***

Walsh has had good seasons and bad seasons as Harvard’s coach, but his competitiveness, intensity, and love for the game have never wavered.

“He coaches not to lose,” says Peter Woodfork ’99, assistant GM of the Arizona Diamondbacks. “He pushes the envelope. He wants to win games.”

These qualities have transferred to many of his former players, who have passed on lucrative post-college careers in finance and consulting to keep playing baseball until “they rip the jersey off,” as Steffan Wilson ’08, a minor leaguer in the Brewers system who has been called to the major league camp in Spring Training, puts it.

With many of his former players working their way through the minors or taking positions in major league front offices, Walsh continues to be a valuable resource for those in the know.

“In addition to being an outstanding baseball person, his knowledge and experience is something that you don’t take lightly,” says Mike Hill ’93, general manager of the Florida Marlins. “[If] he calls you and he says there’s a player he likes, you take notice.”

But despite his extensive network throughout the broader baseball community, the Harvard coach is most concerned with what’s happening on the field—his field. Because while Walsh values what he’s done in the past, the real thrill comes from what’s next—the next pitch, the next inning, the next game. Baseball.

“I don’t think there’s a moment that passes where he’s not thinking about it,” Wilson says of Walsh and baseball. Then, echoing his former teammate Haviland, Wilson spells out the reality of Joe Walsh.

“He lives the game.”

—Staff writer Loren Amor can be reached at lamor@fas.harvard.edu.