It's amazing how timing can warp perspective in sports.
If the baseball team had only ended the season the way it started it and not the other way around, everyone would talk about the team's great season and how the program was headed on the up-swing and will contend for the Ivy League Title next year.
Instead, it was the second half of the season that featured a nine-of-11 losing streak and the first half that saw the team jump out to a promising 10-6 start that filled Big Green baseball fans' heads with delusions of pennants.
Make no mistake, the 1993 team was a much improved baseball team from its 1992 season. This year's squad posted a 14-19 record - a .159 improvement in winning percentage over last year's 9-25 team.
"There's a lot of differences between this year's team and last year," second baseman Mike Hommeyer '93 said. "We had a lot more confidence in ourselves. The attitude of the team was always up. The clubhouse was a lot better place to be. No one gave up. Some things didn't go our way, but that was not because of our attitude."
Much of that attitude has to be attributed to the job Joe Tosone '93 and Clark Khayat '93 did as captains.
"Khayat and Tosone really did an outstanding job as captains both on and off the field," Coach Bob Whalen said.
So where did the 1993 season go slightly sour? In a word, Brown.
Dartmouth went into its series against Brown 10-6 overall with a 4-2 Ivy record that was second best in the league and was swept in four home games over two days, three of which Brown won on its last at bat.
"The Brown series is convenient to point to," Whalen said. "It's very easy to look at that series and say at the very least we should have won two games. But you have to point things in perspective. I don't think we lost any more games because of that weekend. We had played one game in 11 days, and our starting pitchers in the first game, [Steve] Murphy ['94] and [Mike] Tallman ['95] had not pitched in a game in 15 days."
Indeed, the beginning part of the team's schedule can be described as nothing other than weird. After its California trip, the Big Green were pushed inside Leverone to field ground balls off tennis courts for three weeks. Its first five home games were either cancelled, moved or rescheduled.
After losing to Brown, Dartmouth had midweek match-ups against Merrimack and Springfield scrapped and had to face Yale, the eventual Ivy League champ, for four games in New Haven, Conn. Dartmouth won one of those games, lost another non-league game to New Hampshire, and then took one of four from Harvard the next weekend.
Dartmouth then lost to Providence and Holy Cross before ending its season with a sweep of Cornell in a doubleheader.
Tosone led the team in batting average at .379 and nine other offensive categories -- runs, hits, doubles, triples, total bases, slugging percentage, walks, stolen bases and on-base percentage. Tosone either scored or drove in nearly 30 percent of all Dartmouth's runs.
Tosone and John Clifford '95 were named to the first team All-Ivy squad. Clifford, the team's catcher, was outstanding both at bat (.357, 18 RBI's in 3 HR's in 33 games) and behind the plate.
The infield, which had no returning starters at the same position in the beginning of the season, was a solid unit all year. Todd Seneker '95 batted .325 and had a .983 fielding percentage. Mike Hommeyer '93, whose three home runs and 19 RBI's were team highs, was also strong in the field. With the exception of one game where he made three errors, Hommeyer made only one error the rest of the season at second base.
At short, John McEwan '96 had occasional problems but was an excellent fielder and led the team in sacrifices. Todd Marker '93 stroked 18 RBI's hitting in the middle of the line-up.
In the outfield, Curtis Jones '95, who batted over .400 in California, was a key contributor to the team's success on the spring trip. Jones switched between left and DH with Craig Pawling '96, who made only two errors all season in left.
One of the real highlights of the season was the play of Greg Gilmer '96. Gilmer led the Ivies in batting through the first part of the season and ended with a .349 average and 18 RBI's.
A definite trouble spot for Dartmouth over the season was in relief pitching. Dartmouth firemen had a combined for a 1-7 record and a 7.55 ERA.
The starting pitching, on the other hand, was strong. Tallman (4-2, 3.42 ERA), who grabbed honorable mention All-Ivy, and Khayat (3-2, 3.25 ERA) were among the league leaders in ERA. MacDonald's 4.63 ERA is deceptive because of one rough outing he had against Brown that include an interminable 11-run first inning. Murphy had the best strike out to walk ratio on the team.
