While you could call it an oh-so-close season for the Dartmouth baseball team, falling just one game shy of the three-time defending Red Rolfe Division champion Yale, as Dartmouth baseball seasons go, this one was a gem.
Now two weeks since wrapping up the season, Coach Bob Whalen has much to be thankful for.
The team finished 12-8 in the Ivies and 19-17 overall, its first mark over .500 since Whalen took over five years ago.
Even though the team once again finished second-fiddle to the Bulldogs, Whalen is still ecstatic, proud of the job his players did this year.
"It usually takes me a couple weeks to decompress a little bit -- you put so much into the year every day, whether it's for practice or whatever, but ... this has been a great year," he said.
"We're that much better this year than last year [by three games] and that is after having come off a year in which we thought we made ... tremendous strides from the year before."
"That alone has made [this year] very gratifying," Whalen continued.
The Big Green diamonders finished second to Yale in 1994 as well, with a 9-11 record, but that year the Bulldogs ran away with the title, five games ahead of Dartmouth.
This year, it came down to only one game for the sluggers, and depending on how you look at it, only one out.
In the second of a four-game series with Yale in April, the Dartmouth nine, after coming from behind to take the lead late in the game, let it slip away in the final frame despite retiring the first two batters of the inning.
"People have a tendency to look at the Yale game," Whalen said. "That was certainly a difficult loss, but at the same time the very next day [against Yale] we were down by a run with two out and nobody on in the seventh, and we wound up winning."
"So even though we probably let one get away that we should have won, we definitely won one that we surely should have lost. [Over a season] those things kind of cancel themselves out," he said.
What does not cancel out, Whalen said, is that by the time Dartmouth can even get on Red Rolfe Field (perhaps better known as Red Rolfe Tundra), most teams are already well into their season.
"Obviously there is a disparity there," Whalen admitted.
As case in point, when Dartmouth made the trek to Columbia on April 1 to open its Ivy League weekend, the Big Green had already played 10 fewer games than the Lions. Dartmouth proceeded to stumble into the Ivy League season with a 1-3 mark.
"It is a disadvantage, but its something that since you have no control over it you can't dwell on the outcome, you just have to find a way to be successful," he said.
"The one thing I hope our players take away from this is that those games in the beginning do count just as much as the games at the end."
On offense, the Big Green continued what has become a tradition of relentlessly pounding Ivy League hurlers, sporting a team batting average of .315 in the Ancient Eight. Balance was the theme, as all nine starters in the lineup finished with batting averages over .300. All-Ivy honorees third-baseman Jake Isler '96, first-baseman Todd Seneker '95, second-baseman Mike Armstrong '97, center-fielder Andrew Spencer '97, right-fielder Greg Gilmer '96, and designated hitter Travis Horton '96 paced one of the most potent offenses in the League.
The biggest surprise this year for the Big Green was on the mound. From the start of the season, Whalen handed three of the four spots in the starting rotation to pea-green freshmen, who, though shaky at times, for the most part responded well to the on-the-job training.
Sophomore "veteran" Scott Simon led the staff with a 7-1 record this year. Phenom Eric Walania '98 made an impressive jump from the high school level, with a team-leading Ivy League ERA of 2.36.
Whalen said he was not surprised by the continued hitting and upstart pitching, however.
"Honestly, I expected us to be good, and I think the players expected to be good, and to say that I was really shocked to have the year that we did would be to go into it without much confidence in our players, and that definitely is not the case," he said.
The team appears primed to take its bash 'em out, throw 'em out style of play to the next level next year, according to Whalen. For the second consecutive year, the defense and starting lineup will remain virtually intact in 1996.
Dartmouth will have to absorb losses at left field from platoon player Curtis Jones '95 and first base from top hitter but oft-injured Captain Todd Seneker '95. But to offset the losses, Whalen said he expects five strong recruits to fill the void.
Unlike last year, when the new blood on the team focused on pitching, next year's class yields two outfielders: Ron Freedman and Nick Ratliff, first baseman Steve Brown, catcher Eric Anderson and right-handed pitcher Bernard Mauricia.
While clearly excited about the fresh influx of Big Green talent, Whalen remained nevertheless tight-lipped about the rookies, saying only, "We think that they are pretty good players."
Only time will tell. The Dartmouth baseball team, however, can no longer can carry the old pretext of youth and inexperience, and after coming so close to the goal this year, should arrive with stronger resolve and more focused eyes on the prize in 1996.
