Baseball Team Collects One Win, Five Losses

Leading off last Monday in the first game of the 1965 Harvard baseball season, Skip Falcone hit a home run against Maryland. But things went downhill rapidly from there.

Maryland rallied to beat the Crimson 7-4, and with the exception of a 4-0 victory over Virginia the next day, Harvard lost every other game on its spring vacation tour.

The varsity dropped the second game with Virginia 2-1, lost twice to Richmond 8-5 and 8-0, and was shut out on two hits by Navy for a 4-0 defeat, ending its six-day spring tour with a 1-5 record.

Coach Norm Shepard took the team south with one thought in mind: find pitchers. But the only solid pitching prospect to emerge from the trip was 6-4 righthander John Scott, who combined with sophomore Jim McCandlish to shut out Virginia. Scott worked a total of 19 innings, winning one and losing one with an ERA of 2.35, Scott struck out 10 men in his three appearances.

The team's hitting a pre-season "strong" point, became another headache for Shepard. Third-baseman Jim Tobin, who led the Crimson last season with a 351 average, hit .333 on the tour, but the other averages on the team were dismal. Outfielder George Neville hit .227, and short stop Tom Bilodeau, with a .158 average, led the team with a paltry four RBI's, Falcone's 250 mark was second best for the trip.

Today's varsity home baseball game against Springfield in Splinter Stadium begins at 3 p.m.

The veterans' problems could open the starting lineup to a number of sophomores. The only sophomore starter on the southern trip was outfielder Dan Hootstein, but outfielder Bobby Leo, who chiefly saw pinchhitting duty on the tour, and first baseman Joe O'Donnell might find slots if Shepard should decide to shake the team up by juggling the lineup.

The team's difficulties over the vacation were partly a result of tougher opposition. Last year, instead of meeting Virginia, Navy, and Maryland on its swing through the South, the team took on Hampden-Sydney, Lynchburg, and Johns Hopkins.

Sophomore Jim Melfa is slated to start on the mound against Springfield at 3 p.m. today in the squad's first home game. Shepard plans to use Scott and Kent Mitchell, the pitching staff's only returning lettermen, in the Greater Boston League opener against Boston University here Wednesday.