Big Green Teams

"If we are to win the Eastern League championship again, we must do it ourselves. We can't expect help from another team."

This was Tony Lupien's analysis of the position Dartmouth's baseball team occupied midway through the Indians' quest for their fourth EIBL title in the past five years.

It was nice to get home after playing their first 14 games on foreign soil (and doing better than all right despite the disadvantage of unfamiliar surroundings) but the first home game (against Brown) may prove to be a costly affair.

Dartmouth reached its 1971 debut at Red Rolfe Field with a 9-5 record. The Indians had won six of ten games during their southern trip—the best record in four seasons and, as Lupien noted, "Anytime we can come home with a .500 record or better, we've done pretty well."

In their first regular season weekend tour against EIBL foes, the Indians trimmed Penn (6-3) and then divided a doubleheader with Navy (winning 4-0 after losing 3-0).

Then came a scrambling 4-2 win over Boston University. And then Brown.

The Bruins, greeted by a crowd of more than 1000 fans at Rolfe Field, had not defeated Dartmouth in baseball since 1960, but turned on Charlie Janes, the sharp junior who has moved out of the shadow of heralded classmate Pete Broberg.

Brown led, 3-1, when Janes departed and the Bruins added five unearned runs against reliever Jim Metzler, a sophomore. The final score was 8-6 for Brown and the decision was only partially offset by subsequent wins over Brown (3-0 on Broberg's three-hitter in the second half of the doubleheader) and over Yale (4-1, as senior Oz Griebel hurled a four-hitter for his third win without a loss).

In a 14-game league schedule, Lupien figures that a team should be able to lose four games and still win the EIBL title. That may not be true this year.

"There are five teams with an even chance at the title," he said. "Cornell, Princeton, Harvard, Navy and Dartmouth have respectable teams.

"If we want to win, we can't expect help from anyone else. We have to beat the contenders ourselves."

The loss to Brown was the first against a New England opponent in 17 games, stretching back to the 1969 NCAA district tournament. At this point last year, when the Indians also had lost twice in the league, Lupien was a bit more optimistic about his team's chances for another title.

"There isn't a guttier or greater bunch of men than we have on this team," he said. "They know how to win and they don't like to lose. Give them a chance and they'll find a way to beat you.

"We lost Chuck Seelbach (now pitching in the Detroit farm system at Toledo) but we have a good college pitching staff, deeper than I've ever had at Dartmouth.

"However, we lost Bruce Saylor, Bud Dagirmanjian, and Bob Mlakar from the 1970 team. They were good hitters and we've not replaced them. We're a low-run team. If we're going to win we'll have to keep the score down."

Janes, Broberg, Griebel, and Metzler are better-than-average starters. Seniors John Prado and Bill Saumsiegle are effective relievers.

At the plate, though, only junior Frank Mannarino, the leftfielder, has been reasonably consistent. On the southern trip, he had 11 hits and two walks in his first 13 times at bat. After 17 games, he still had a .403 batting average and 19 runs batted in.

After Mannarino, though, it's a long look down. Wayne Young, the football co-captain who plays right field and periodically spells Captain Tim Hannigan behind the plate, had a .264 average (.471 in six league games).

Then came second-baseman Jim Bell (.260), centerfielder Tom Hanna (.255) and Craig Conklin, the All- EIBL third baseman, at .254.

Last year, the Indians had a team batting average of .268. At the midway mark this spring, that average was only .238. The hits have been reasonably timely but hardly in the numbers that were a trademark of the 1970 World Series team.

Broberg's win against Brown included 11 strikeouts and was his best performance to date. Then Griebel, who had a two-hit shutout into the ninth inning against Yale, looked as if he had lost as he left the field with a 4-1 win but no shutout.

And against Boston University, Lupien started junior Fred Crossman who walked six men and gave up a 30-foot single that stopped on the first base line in the first inning. B.U. got both its runs in that frame but nothing thereafter as Saumsiegle and Prado combined for seven-plus innings of no-hit relief.

Outfielder Frank Mannarino '72 was hitting at a .403 clip at the midway pointof Dartmouth's baseball season.