On the Road With the 'Crimson Dogs'

You can't say you've experienced all the joys of baseball until you've ridden the bus with a team for a weekend. Particularly a college baseball team. Very particularly, Harvard's college baseball team.

If anything, last weekend's bus jaunt to New York and Philadelphia taught me one thing: you never know as much about the game as you think. The world of the player, at a time when everything is geared toward the game, and when in fact the game becomes a way of life for a weekend, has a special atmosphere not found in a box-score, nor molded in rounds of pepper before a home game.

The fan's baseball culture is so clearly defined--seventh-inning stretches, fights in the bleachers, keeping score, and rhythmic clapping. Anybody can relate to that.

The player has a language, a temperament and a vaguely deeper understanding of the game that somehow wears off as soon as he departs from the serious world of organized ball.

We'll never understand the mind of the baseball player, or the workings of a team, for that matter. How a squad can pitch one day and hit the next and do neither on the third. But luckily that's not important to us, and if it were, it wouldn't be nearly as important as the non-serious part of their world. Watch your step...

Games: Poker, backgammon, "Spot a Junkie," "Spot a Looney," and various sing-alongs.

New York City was the center of almost all the spot games; Philadelphia was too depressing. Without question the most popular song on the bus was Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are," followed closely on Friday by The Drifters' hit "On Broadway." The most inspiring rendition was that of "My Way" by almost the entire team during the trip from Columbia to Philadelphia.

Poker was the steadiest and most spectated game, as the makeshift card-board table and airline deck were both well worn out by the end of the trip. Regulars included Steve "Rich get richer" Baloff, Dick "Go for the flush" Emerson, Rob "What's Steve King's number" Alevizos, Timmy "Nay, I don't want to play this" Clifford, and indentured slave Jim Keyte.

Nicknames Tiki, Magic, Tiburkie, Sudden, Stewdog, Larue, Teru, Daddy, Santa, Hotep, Pec, B-Squared, Zos, and Bing.

You figure it out.

Sayings: "That's me." "Don't get it bent." "Have a clue." "Have an idea." "Have a day." "Have a weekend." "That's that beauty of it." "How gay is that?" "Atsaboy." "It's just that simple." "In my face." "In your eye." "Take me deep."

"Have a" is basically used in front of anything you want to ridicule. "Don't get it bent" is the shortened form of "Don't get your nose bent," which is supposedly what happens to people when they're mad.

Quote of the trip: Mike Stenhouse, on seeing the right field fence at Penn, 40-ft. high, 303-ft away from home plate: "It's like looking at Fenway Park in a mirror."

Eastern League Restaurant of the Weekend: For the players, Paggano's Italian Restaurant in Philly, where they had an eight or nine course meal. For the writer, Georgio's Cafe in Harlem, where the Cheeseburger Deluxe comes with two slices of cheese.

Cole Slaw Award: To the Rov Rogers Restaurant in Philly, where I snuck off to before the doubleheader. Their slaw is a little more meaty, a lot less juicy than Georgio's.

Touches of Class: The color and upkeep of the Penn baseball diamond. The peanut vendor at the doubleheader. NBC television cameras interviewing Mike Wilhite before the Columbia Game. The "Star Spangled Banner" at Baker Field. The "Welcome Harvard Baseball" sign at the Sheraton Airport Inn in Philadelphia. Poker and sandwiches in a hotel room. Curfew.

It was a lesson in baseball without the game.