Play the game the right way? Walsh would pull one of his own guys midgame, regardless of importance, for running afoul of the game and its code. Stories? Who was better at telling them than Joe Walsh? And who was a better character in his own right?

And that faith, that faith that the breakthrough would come. Walsh always spoke of what an amazing achievement it would be for Harvard, a non-scholarship school, a program hamstrung by its weather patterns and own league’s rigorous academic requirements, to make it to the College World Series. Brian and I had promised each other that when it happened—and it was going to happen—we’d fly to Omaha and shake his hand. A national audience on ESPN would fall in love with him as we had, and as all of America had with another unique character in Princeton basketball’s Pete Carril in the 90s. Walsh’s unflagging optimism made that and all possibilities seem real. To catch Joe Walsh in the weeks before the team’s spring training was to meet a man almost desperately excited about that year’s team.

We’ve got some weekend arms that I think are gonna surprise some people, Mahty, he’d say. The strength of the ballclub, it's going to be pitching. We’ve got some guys that came back from great summers in the Cape and elsewhere, and they’re really going to be great to go to war with in the Ivy League.... This was more or less how conversations with the Coach would begin every single February.

It is numbing to think that when that breakthrough happens—and it will happen—Joe Walsh won’t be coaching that team. It’s going to take a lot of sitting and staring out of the dugout to get over that one.

Right now, the dugout’s awfully crowded. It’s going to stay that way well past sunset.Tears flowed in a lot of places as word spread on Tuesday, on ballfields and in concrete caves alike. As Joe’s wife, Sandra, told the Crimson yesterday, “I’ve been getting a lot of phone calls this morning. I have never in my entire life heard so many grown men crying.”

I offer prayers and condolences to Mrs. Walsh and to their four daughters. And I offer my deepest thanks to the great Joe Walsh for the type of wisdom that makes it easier, eventually, to get up, and walk home, and smile.

Martin S. Bell was Associate Sports Editor for the Crimson in 2001 and 2002. Brian E. Fallon, who edited the post, was Sports Chair in 2002. The two covered Joe Walsh’s Harvard baseball team from 2000 to 2003.