By Chad Hollis
I sat down with Ben Murray '10 and Jake Pruner '11 to talk about the active life of a Dartmouth baseball pitcher. Both provided candid words of wisdom about pitching, their teammates and winning an Ivy League Championship.
Describe your pitching style.
BM: Jake is more of a power pitcher; he just throws it right at you as fast as he can. I'm craftier. I try to throw different pitches. Basically, it comes down to the fact that Jake's more physically gifted than I am.
JP: Murray actually has control. I just kind of stand there and throw the ball as fast as I can. I'd be much like Randy Johnson if I was left handed, 10 inches taller and if I threw 10 miles per hour faster.
Do you have any nicknames on the team?
BM: I don't have any, but we've got a freshman pitcher by the name of Michael Johnson ['13] who everyone calls Snoopy. Our second baseman came up with it. It doesn't reference anything, but he really wanted to call one of the freshmen Snoopy, and it stuck, and it kind of suits him now.
JP: He's a Snoopy, through and through.
A lot of people say pitchers don't need to work out much because throwing strikes is the only thing that matters. Are you two weight room pitchers or do you agree with this philosophy?
JP: The pitchers are the best athletes on the team, we do the most running.
BM: We don't have to work out, but if you want to look good you got to lift weights. Looking good is a big part of pitching. We're really into "look good, feel good, play good."
JP: Mo Vaughn, maybe you've heard of him. Not exactly the most physically fit guy. Roger Clemens he's a stone house.
I'm a little confused, how do you do the most running on the field?
BM: Not on the field, at practice. We have nothing to do for the four hours we're at practice, so for about half the time we just start running. We just run back and forth across the field, we don't really go anywhere.
Do you guys ever bat?
JP: If the other team doesn't score any runs, then we get what's called herd BP [batting practice]. The herd refers to the pitchers. We all move together, kind of slowly.
BM: Like a pack of cattle. This is a big part of the Dartmouth program you have position players and you have the herd. Herd BP occurs usually once a year. We've got one coming up because Rob Young ['10] just threw a shutout. Each pitcher gets five swings and we see who can hit the furthest.
JP: It's kind of funny because some of the pitchers haven't hit in a while.
How does winning the Ivy League Championship last year rank among your athletic achievements?
BM: It could not be higher. It was one of the greatest moments of my life. It's one of the greatest feelings of accomplishment. Freshman year, we went 5-15 in the Ivies. It was really tough. It made you ask yourself whether you wanted to devote all your time and energy to baseball. Sophomore year we had a great season, but we just lost on the last day. Last year was the culmination of all the hard work we've put in day in and day out. We work harder than any other team in the Ivy League. It feels great and it just motivates us to come back harder and win it again.
JP: I couldn't have said it better. It was just the greatest feeling in the world.
BM: The new stadium and all the fans we had out really made it special. The students cheering and yelling for us really made the whole experience.
JP: Students, professors and people we didn't know on campus blitzed us congratulations. It was awesome.
What about the rings that came along with the championship?
BM: They're not the kind of ring you can wear casually. You put that ring on and people are going to notice it. For us, it's our World Series ring. Most of us are not going to be playing beyond Dartmouth. Winning this was really like our world championship. Our coach has wanted this championship so long. He's been so close and he's had so much success, but he hadn't quite gotten it yet. He went the extra mile and really got us a good looking ring.
JP: We wore the ring everywhere for the first week we got them. It's only a five ounce ring, but those five ounces are waking up at 5:15 in the morning to go run when people are still out hanging around campus. It's the coming in for individual practice early in the morning. It's doing all the extra long tosses when nobody's watching. All the hard work is what made this ring special.
Do you ever use the ring to pick up girls?
JP: I've never needed it.
