BASEBALL '07: Catcher and the Eyes

Drew Casey is finally seeing things clearly.

After offseason laser eye surgery, the senior backstop’s vision is impeccable, and Harvard’s prospects at the catcher position are looking good.

“It’s something that my father had done,” Casey says, “and he pushed it on me. I wasn’t too keen on getting my eyeballs messed with at first, but he convinced me to do it. He thought it would help me out in baseball.”

According to Crimson head coach Joe Walsh, the results are already showing on the diamond.

“I walked up to [Casey] the other day,” Walsh says. “I said, ‘Case, what is it that you’re doing this year that’s so different?’ He says, ‘Coach, I had double Lasik eye surgery in August.’ He’s a whole different kid.”

“It’s been a huge change,” says Casey, who had worn contact lenses since he was 11. “For me, it was something I had to deal with for so long, it’s just great not to have to worry about glasses or contacts anymore. It’s pretty liberating.”

Although nothing like the radical transformation Charlie Sheen’s famous “Wild Thing” character experienced in the classic baseball movie “Major League,” the history of Harvard baseball players undergoing mid-career optic improvement is more extensive than one would think.

Last season, Matt Brunnig was fitted for contact lenses on the eve of the Crimson’s climactic doubleheader with the Big Green in Hanover. The lanky senior then went 6-for-13 in the final four games of his collegiate career, highlighted by a 400-foot drive to the depths of Dartmouth’s Red Rolfe Field’s cavernous center field.

Even further back in the annals, outfielder Brian Ralph ’98 stroked 10 home runs in an injury-shortened senior season after having his vision corrected prior to that spring.

“Three kids that I’ve had, and all of the sudden they’ve had late eye changes, and it’s a world of difference,” Walsh says. “I’m not bright enough to think of those things, but from now on...I’m going to check everybody.”

Casey’s new and improved sight also serves as an apt metaphor for Walsh’s elevated expectations for his catching corps, which, including senior Justin Roth and junior Matt Kramer, boasts three legitimate veteran options.

“Last year, catching was not one of our strengths, offensively and defensively,” Walsh says. “I think we were disappointed. This year, we feel it is going to be a strength. Have we changed personnel? No.”

Casey is the group’s leader, having started 25 of the team’s 42 games behind the dish last season. After backing up stalwart Schuyler Mann ’05 for two seasons, the Virginia Beach native assumed regular duties in 2006, hitting .267 but striking out 22 times in 86 at-bats and picking up a mere six RBI.

“I had real big expectations after sophomore year,” Casey says. “Last year, there were definitely some struggles. I definitely didn’t have the year I was hoping to have.”

But Casey did start to come on towards the end of the campaign. He struck his first home run of the season in Harvard’s division-clinching 23-9 win over Dartmouth and went 4-for-7 in the team’s season-ending Ivy Championship Series sweep at the hands of Princeton, carrying that momentum into this spring.

Casey is not the only Crimson catcher who made great strides since last season.

“[Roth] and Kramer both had tremendous summers,” Casey says. “They got a lot of playing time, and they’ve both improved their games dramatically.”

Kramer, a St. Louis product, honed his game in the Midwest’s Northwoods League, while Roth spent time in the New York Collegiate Baseball League. Kramer, a career .275 hitter, is best known for his laser-beam throws down to second base, which have been clocked at speeds exceeding the velocity on most of the Harvard hurlers’ fastballs.

Roth, who played a year of junior varsity baseball after transferring from Emory before making the squad as a junior last season, launched the Crimson’s first home run of the season versus Tampa on March 12, his second career jack in just 18 at-bats.

“He’s come from being a walk-on whose job was to catch the bullpens and keep your mouth shut,” Walsh says of Roth, “and has turned out to be a kid who’s still a quiet kid, but right now his bat’s doing the talking.”

All of which leaves Walsh with the enviable dilemma of dividing playing time among the three worthy catching candidates.

“That’s nice, but it’s hard to keep three catchers happy,” Walsh says. “Last year, our catcher was in the eighth or ninth hole. We weren’t stopping the ball. I think it’s a strength that we’ve got right now. And we’ll play the hot one.”

“I think [the depth] can only really help us out, because we play so many games every weekend,” Kramer says. “It’s just nice to have a bunch of guys that can step right in and fill in pretty much seamlessly.”

The catchers have already found extra playing time by shedding the tools of ignorance and slotting into the lineup at different positions. Kramer is getting reacquainted with his first-baseman’s mitt—“I hadn’t really played a lot since high school,” he says—and Casey and Roth are both prospective designated hitters.

“We all do our best to get time in the games,” Casey says. “However Coach Walsh sees it, I think we all have faith he’s going to put the best guy back there.”

And if Walsh’s vision is nearly as good as Casey’s, he’s certain not to err.

“I was just joking around with [Casey] in the dugout down in Florida,” Kramer says. “I popped a contact out and almost lost it. I didn’t have a backup with me, and he said, ‘You know, man, you should get this Lasik surgery. It’s great.’”

—Staff writer Jonathan Lehman can be reached at jlehman@fas.harvard.edu.