Baseball Team Favored In Game With Engineers

The Crimson baseball team, which virtually eliminated itself from a chance at the Eastern Intercollegiate Baseball League pennant by losing to Brown Saturday, has a good chance of picking up a non-league win when Harvard tackles M.I.T. at Kindlestick Park today.

The Engineers shouldn't provide much competition; last year they were trampled 15-2 by Harvard, making seven errors during the game.

Today's game should be a good chance for the Crimson batsman, almost hitless in recent games, to fatten up their slumping batting averages. Gavin Gilmor has fallen off from .432 to .328 in the last five games, and Tom Bilodeau has dropped 43 points to .328 over the same span. The only consistent hitter has been second baseman Terry Bartolet, currently leading the team with a .346 average.

But the team's slump has largely been brought on by brilliant pitching on the part of the Crimson's opponents. First Columbia's Neil Farber, unbeaten since his high school days, whipped the Crimson on a six-hitter. Then Dick MacPherson of Northeastern threw a four-hitter at Harvard. After wins over B.C. and Army, the Crimson was held to one run and seven hits Saturday by Brown's Bill Nelson.

Dick Garibaldi will face M.I.T. today. Gary has been a bit ineffective in some of his last appearances; he was knocked out by Northeastern and rapped for three runs in two innings by Brown. But his E.R.A. is still a fine 2.25 and he should be able to stop the Engineers today.

The loss to Brown just about ended the Crimson's hopes for an E.I.B.L. pennant. Prior losses to Penn and Columbia have left the team with a 2-3 league record, and wins in the remaining league contests could make the Crimson's mark no better than 6-3.