Clifford Chalks Up Two Wins, And So Do Batsmen; 11-4, 8-2

HANOVER, N.H.--They really haven't been playing baseball up in the wilds of New Hampshire for the past decade. The days spent watching Pete Broberg and Chuck Seelbach make fools out of hitters are now replaced by fraternity "chariot races," beerball, and relay runs to the package store.

But until the 11th inning of Saturday's doubleheader opener here, it was anything but the annual chuckle-and-rout affair versus the Hanoverians. Fortunately, it turned out only to be a heart-stopping scare for Harvard, as the batsmen came up with a critical sweep over the Big Green, 11-4 and 8-2.

Harvard now has a 7-4 EIBL record and three Eastern League games remaining. If the batsmen should defeat Cornell on Friday and sweep Army in the Saturday doubleheader at West Point, they will finish no worse than tied for first place with Navy (currently 8-4 with two games left).

While artificial respiration may have been needed for the Penn game three weeks ago, a pacemaker would have been standard equipment to get through the late innings of the first game.

With no score in the bottom of the sixth (doubleheader games are only seven innings long), Dartmouth sparred Harvard starter Larry Brown for three two-out runs on four consecutive hits. "I had been going almost too smooth up to that point. I got the first two men and then I had the next guy (Dartmouth DH Mike "Bull' Durham) 3-and-2 before I got my slider up and he hit it. It was kind of a shot put and after that I lost my concentration," Brown said afterwards.

Harvard aggressively came back in the top of the seventh when freshman Erol Ceran's pinch base hit to right loaded the bases and the former light-hitting Rick Pearce roped a double to right-center to score two runs. Dartmouth then yanked starter Jim Croteau (who had yielded only a single to Pearce through the first six) in favor of Matt Cairone, whose first pitch was squeeze-bunted by Burke St. John to score pinch runner Paul Scheper with the tying run.

The Crimson took the lead for the first time in the ninth when Cairone, captain-designate of the Jay Hook Memorial Pitching Staff (Dartmouth hurlers gave up 13 walks in the game), walked Bobby Kelley with the bases loaded and two outs, making the score 4-3.

Meanwhile, Brown, who had succeeded in slithering out of a bases-loaded, 3-and-1 count jam in the seventh, gave way to reliever Ron Stewart in the eighth. Steward likewise Houdinied from a sacks-filled situation in the ninth by tagging out shortstop Gary Masse on a not-so-passed passed ball, but not until after he had yielded Dartmouth's fourth run on a sacrifice fly.

The Crimson then figured there had been enough excitement. Tim Clifford shut the door on the Big Green in the final two innings, while the batsmen scored seven runs on four hits and an obscene number of walks to put the Haves and Have-nots back in their rightful places.

Two hours and only 85 pitches later, Clifford won the dusk-cap of the twin bill, 8-2. To my knowledge Clifford is the first pitcher around these parts to win both ends of a doubleheader since Dooley Wolmack of the Yankees in 1968. Whatever, after Dartmouth took a 1-0 lead in the first, it was Clifford's ballgame. Harvard lashed out ten hits, five of them for extra bases, one of them a satellite, that being Bingham's two-run homer in the sixth that hit halfway up the roof of the fieldhouse behind the right field fence.

Clifford, who upped his record to 5-3, has emerged once again as a strong number two man behind Brown. "Basically, I was using my head a lot better out there and pacing myself because I had gone two innings in the first game. When you're up a few runs, you don't monkey around against hitters like these. You just put it hard over the plate," he said afterwards.

Happy

Brown, who feels that the one-inning mound blues are finally behind him, was optimistic: "Hey, we showed a lot. Down three runs in the last inning with our season on the line and coming back the way we did, that tells you something," he said.

Clifford, meanwhile, was practical. "This is great. I'm going home now to my keg and make love to it," he said.

Well, I guess there's a little Dartmouth in all of us.

THE NOTEBOOK: The doubleheader loss was Dartmouth's 14th in a row, a school record for the guys in the lumber jackets.

Shortstop St. John, who has been cracking the ball at a .429 clip over the last ten games, had three doubles on Saturday. "I closed up my stance about two weeks ago and the pitches have been looking like grapefruits ever since," he said.

Mike Stenhouse's pair of doubles in the twin bill gave him sole possession of the career and season marks for two baggers. The Stenman celebrated with an inspiring recitation of "Casey at the Bat" over the bus intercom on the return trip.

Kelley upped his hitting streak to 11 games, while Charlie Santos-Buch saw his skien snapped at nine.