Word: walsh
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...course, things changed under the renaissance of present Coach Joe Walsh, who has led the Crimson to four Red Rolfe Division titles, three Ivy League championships and four NCAA Tournament wins in five seasons. But in 1997, when it had been 13 years since Harvard had tasted postseason play, Brush was a bridge to the past and quaintly anachronistic. It looked like he could have wandered up North Harvard Street to O'Donnell Field from the Sports Depot in Allston and, stumbling upon a baseball game, decided he wouldn't mind tossing the horsehide around a little...
...Even a wild card like Bart Brush had his role on Walsh's Crimson...
...When I interviewed Walsh for the first time, on the eve of Opening Day of the 1998 season, I asked how he could replace the team's two graduates--cleanup-hitting Pete Albers and Ivy Pitcher of the Year Frank Hogan. Walsh interrupted to correct me, told me there had been three seniors on the 1997 team, and made his apologia for Brush: "He might have looked like who-knows-what, but he came to play every...
...time, I bracketed Walsh's enthusiasm, writing it off as another in the litany of stock responses that reporters get by the dozen: "We played our game today," "We were able to execute," "We had a lot of positive team energy," or the chestnut so moldy it was banned from the Crimson sports page--"It was a real hard-fought win." As Red Sox manager Jimy Williams is fond of saying about his favorites, "Trot Nixon, he's a real baseball player." And so on ad nauseam...
...with the patience and diligence of a deconstructive critic, I came to read more into Walsh's words. As I watched his Crimson blitz through a 34-16 season in 1998, one which ended at the NCAA Tournament in Baton Rouge, La., with Harvard ranked No. 24 in the nation and just three wins away from the College World Series, I realized that Walsh was anachronistic in his own right...