The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Yale proving these ‘nerds’ know how to play
Despite no athletic scholarships, high admissions standards and rigorous academic schedules, the Bulldogs were neither intimidated nor outclassed by Nebraska, the Big 10 regular season champs.
We finally broke down and got a dog. It’s a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. The breed name comes off as a bit snooty but this dog’s appearance is a bit more blue-collar. He’s a dead ringer for Marty Feldman, what with the raised brows and bulging eyes, like he spent the night searching mortuaries for an abnormal brain.
Come to think of it, Feldman would have been a good name. (Or Igor, pronounced Eye-gor, for those missing the “Young Frankenstein” reference.) But I ceded naming rights to the boy. He chose Bryce, after the perfectly coiffed, helmet-throwing slugger for the Washington Nationals. Other finalists also happened to be among his favorite athletes: Brady, Ichiro and Buster.
Anyway, the dog is fitting in well at the house and his personality already mimics that of his master. His favorite hobbies include eating, napping and occasionally barking at the television. Now if I can just teach him to write a newspaper column…
• Yale, under the leadership of first baseman and future president George H.W. Bush, was runner-up at each of the first two College World Series’ in 1947 and 1948. So it’s tough to say Friday’s convincing 5-1 victory over Nebraska in the opening game of the NCAA regional is the biggest in program history.
But it was certainly as impressive as any win in the 153-year history of Yale baseball.
Despite no athletic scholarships, high admissions standards and rigorous academic schedules, the Bulldogs were neither intimidated nor outclassed by Nebraska, the Big 10 regular season champs.
Opponents at the regional know enough not to take anyone lightly. Fans, however, have no problem airing misguided perceptions of Ivy League athletics. The Twitter feed of an Oregon State fan website, upon seeing Yale enter the campus stadium wrote, “The nerds have arrived.”
Someone at Yale playfully posted a shot of its dugout watching the action, each player wearing photo-shopped blackframed glasses held together with white tape. The Bulldogs are happy to play out the plot to Revenge of the Nerds. They don’t believe there’s any difference between themselves and the nation’s best baseball schools.
“When I came to Yale I had the same expectations as those across the country about Ivy League baseball, that it’s just a bunch of smart guys and baseball is another thing they do,” Yale coach John Stuper said. “These guys are baseball players. They have the same aspirations as guys from Clemson and LSU do. They want to play in the big leagues.”
The Bulldogs got a crack at Oregon State, the best team in the country, on Saturday night, a game that began at 11 p.m. and ended well after press time. Victory is a tall order, but, should they pull it off, just might trump the achievements of those great Yale teams of Mr. Bush.
• Harper charged the mound after clearly being plunked on purpose and was suspended three games, or 27 innings for a superstar position player. Hunter Strickland of the Giants, who threw the pitch, got six games. Strickland is a middle reliever and has logged 18 innings on the mound in eight weeks. So his suspensions equates to two innings. That’s ridiculous.
• I refuse to look at car accidents or any other roadside mishaps causing traffic. Not even a quick glance. It’s a matter of principle. You can’t be annoyed with rubberneckers causing a jam if you’re doing it, too. But, man, it’s hard not to gawk at the latest Tiger Woods mess.
• Reports say Mr. Met was being mercilessly heckled before flipping off a fan at Citi Field. Any chance the guy walking around in the mascot suit that night was Matt Harvey?
• The Mets apologized, but, come on. It’s not like anyone at Citi Field hasn’t seen that gesture before. They’d probably all saw one on their way to the park. You can’t last 10 minutes on the Van Wyck Expressway without being flipped off by another driver. Two minutes if you’ve got Connecticut plates. It’s a scientific fact.
• One thing that came about after seeing still photos of the Giants-Nationals brawl that I hadn’t realized – 90 percent of major leaguers look like they just came from a casting call for the Broadway production of “Hair.”
• The last time Yale won an NCAA regional baseball game was in 1992, a loser’s bracket win over Nicholls State. The coach of that team was Don Brown, whose gone on to a prominent career as a football coach. He’s about to enter his third season as Jim Harbaugh’s defensive coordinator at Michigan.
• Stratford’s Tim White, a junior infielder at UCSan Diego, is batting .287 for a team that’s reached the final three times at the NCAA Division II baseball championships in Grand Prairie, Texas. UC-San Diego played St. Thomas Aquinas on Saturday night; the winner plays West Chester for the title. White has appeared in 42 games for the Tritons. He attended Bunnell High.
• Two months into the season and Aaron Judge is not only a runaway rookie of the year candidate, but, with Mike Trout on the shelf for the next two months, the favorite for MVP to boot.
• The AL Cy Young at two months is a little tighter, but Boston’s Chris Sale has the inside track, barely, on Houston’s Dallas Keuchel. Sale, incidentally, is on pace for 340 strikeouts, which would be the most in MLB since Randy Johnson whiffed 372 in 2001.
• Yale’s Baseball Day Camp for children ages 7-12 is set for July 10-14 at Yale Field. Camp runs from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Registration cost is $350 for the week. For more information contact: info@worldclasssports.com.
• There’s an NBA Finals game on tonight! That’s two games in four days! After waiting a full week following the end of the conference playoffs, it’s bordering on sensory overload.
• Read this week that NASA plans to send a spacecraft to the sun. Wondered how it could get there without disintegrating under the intense heat. Assuming they’ll just launch it at night.
Old joke, I know. Still a good one. Enjoy the day.
Chip Malafronte, the Register sports columnist, can be reached at cmalafronte@nhregister. com. Follow Chip on Twitter @ChipMalafronte.