With the Big Green Teams
NINTH inning.... Two out, two on. ... Count on the batter is two and two.... The pitch catches the inside corner. ... Called third strike....
That's the way it ended on Memorial Field, Wednesday afternoon, May 10. Dartmouth had defeated Princeton 2-1, and junior Jim Shaw of Penacook, N. H., had pitched a no-hit baseball game.
The game was the first Dartmouth nohitter since 1928, when the late Bill Breckinridge '30 and Gunnar Hollstrom '30 combined to pitch a hitless game against Williams.
Such pitching was one of several reasons why Coach Tony Lupien's team was coming into the season's end with an NCAA bid to compete for the New England berth at the College World Series starting June 12 in Omaha. It was also why Dartmouth was tied at press time with Army for the lead in the Eastern Intercollegiate Baseball League, having rolled over previously unbeaten West Point, 9-1.
Ahead of the Green on the way to Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha lay a regular season wrap-up game with Cornell at Ithaca, followed by a best-of-three series in Hanover against Boston College in an NCAA regional playoff. The winner of that series then would have to face the victor in a similar series between Holy Cross and the University of Massachusetts.
Reasons behind the healthy state of Big Green baseball included a solid infield, healthy batting averages, and other good pitching - but that May afternoon against Princeton it was Jim Shaw's day to star.
The first six innings were perfect: three up, three down every time. Then in the seventh Shaw walked the first man up. On sacrifice bunts by the next two batters the Indian infield twice failed to nip the front runner. Then came a strikeout, a sacrifice fly to push in the Tiger tally, and another fly to close off the Princeton scoring.
Shaw walked another man in the eighth inning. The man then stole second, but before he could settle down to figuring out how to get further, second baseman Gene Ryzewicz picked the Princeton runner off with the old hidden ball trick. It was the Indians' second time in as many games to trick the opposition that way. The Dartmouth fans knew what was happening, but they didn't give away the secret!
The victory was Shaw's seventh of the season, his fourth in league play. He has struck out 32 batters and has a 0.77 earned run average.
Such pitching is backed up with hitting such as Ryzewicz's .415 average, first baseman Bob Thomas' .323 and shortstop Mickey Beard's .300 and some nifty defensive play by this hard-hitting trio, plus senior third baseman Paul Mikus.
Additional fine pitching performances have come from Dolph Highmark, Indianapolis junior, who has a 3-2 record, and Glen Culbertson, Bucyrus, Ohio, sophomore, who has won 3 and lost none.
This all adds up to one of the best baseball teams seen in Hanover in a long time, regardless of the outcome of the closing contests.
