Ivy Baseball Preview — Parity Makes for Wide Open League

By wpengine | March 12, 2003

While the 2003 season doesn’t have the overall talent of last year’s league, the pennant races in both the Gehrig and Rolfe divisions appear wide open. Here’s a look at this year’s Ivy League contenders and pretenders, in order of predicted finish.

Lou Gehrig Division

Princeton

2002: 22-23, 13-7

The Tigers have claimed seven straight division titles and won the overall league title in 2000 and 2001 before being dethroned by Harvard last season. However, they return 10 of their top 11 hitters, losing only shortstop Pat Boran. Additionally, the Orange and Black return two of the league’s best pitchers in right-handers Thomas Pauly and Russ Ohlendorf. Pauly is the league’s best prospect according to Baseball America, finishing 2-2 last season with a 1.33 ERA and eight saves in 41 innings.

Penn

2002: 17-22, 11-9

The Quakers return all eight of their offensive starters, including second baseman Nick Italiano, shortstop Steve Glass, and outfielder Andrew McCreery. Italiano is one of the most sure-handed infielders in the league, also tying McCreery for the team lead in home runs a year ago with six. Italiano led the team with 33 RBI, while McCreery was tops in batting average at .390. McCreery is also a talented pitcher, relying on a devastating slider. He will be joined in the rotation by sophomore phenom Bill Kirk, who was 3-0 with three saves in 2002.

Columbia

2002: 27-23, 5-9

The Lions have one of the strongest lineups in the Ivy League, boasting one of the league’s best power hitters in catcher Joe Catsam. Catsam, a senior, bashed 12 home runs and 42 RBI in 2002, finishing the season with a .295 batting average. Shortstop Billy Hess added 35 RBI, while scoring 41 runs in 2002, and is joined up the middle by second baseman Jorge Livermore. Livermore scored a team-high 43 times last season. Brian McKitish is the staff ace, finishing 2-2 in Ivy action last year, with 20 strikeouts in 31 league innings.

Cornell

2002: 15-30, 6-14

See page 6 for an in-depth look at this year’s team.

Red Rolfe Division

Dartmouth

2002: 20-21, 9-11

The Green has one of the league’s best players patrolling its outfield in Scott Shirrell. Shirrell batted .369 with six long balls, while driving in 45 runs. The infield corners are positions of strength, with first baseman Mike Mileusnic and third baseman Ed Lucas wielding solid lumber. Mileusnic stroked four home runs to go along with 34 RBI, while Lucas added 21 RBI. Tim Grant, 2-0 in 2002, and highly touted freshman right-hander Patrick Pfeiffer will form the backbone of Dartmouth’s pitching staff.

Brown

2002: 14-22, 6-8

Like Dartmouth, the Bears return one of the best outfielders in the league, Matt Kutler. The center fielder hit .358 with three home runs and 43 RBI in 2002, and is arguably the best defensive outfielder in the Ivies. The infield should be outstanding, with second baseman Bobby Deeb and third baseman Jeff Nichols collecting second-team All-Ivy honors a season ago. Deeb is sixth all-time amongst Brown batting average leaders, coming into this season with a lifetime mark of .353. However, the one question mark for Brown is its pitching staff, having lost three all-league starters. Right-hander Chris Davidson will anchor the rotation, hoping to build upon his promising freshman season.

Harvard

2002: 31-10, 12-2

Champions last year, the Crimson lost several key players to graduation, including Ivy League Pitcher of the Year and Colorado Rockies third round draft pick Ben Crockett. However, Harvard does have one of the league’s most menacing offensive threats in Trey Hendricks. He knocked in 29 runs in 2002, finishing with six homers and a .365 batting average.

Yale

2002: 22-22-1, 5-9

The worst team in the Ivy League last year, the Elis will be hard pressed to improve this year. They lost their two best pitchers, Matt McCarthy and Craig Breslow, to the June draft, and will need to get significant innings from sophomores Josh Sowers and Mike Elias.

The Bulldogs’ infield defense was a strength in 2002, turning 32 double plays, and returns shortstop Steven Duke. In the outfield, speedster Chris Elkins returns. An All-Ivy outfielder, Elkins batted .374 in 2002.

Archived article by Mark Fetzko

March Madness

By wpengine March 13, 2003

Best Picture of the Year Gonna Win: The Academy will be reluctant to bestow the award upon J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic tale, just as they were hesitant last year, when they preferred the more profound A Beautiful Mind. The Hours, though graceful with high caliber acting, may be too one-dimensional. Meanwhile, Gangs of New York will suffer from the widespread publicity of its flaws, and The Pianist will suffer from a lack of marketing. The winner this year will be the energetic Chicago, which cleverly tells the story of two nightclub dreamers while intertwining the plot with enlivening musical performances. Should Win: The Pianist adds something to the mix we haven’t seen since Life is Beautiful. Understanding the motivation of director Roman Polanski makes the film special, as we see through the eyes of Wladyslaw Szpilman, who was gracefully playing Chopin on a Warsaw radio station when the first German bombs fell. We listen from his ears, we at least begin to understand his sorrow and the hardship he faced, and the true story element may still make this film a winner yet. Szpilman’s survival of the Holocaust is touching, and just as his anguished memories never went away, neither should the memory of this film. Best Actor Gonna Win: Adrien Brody (The Pianist) and Michael Caine (The Quiet American) give powerful performances in their respective films, but their subtle dispositions will not stand out as the best acting of the year. Nicholas Cage’s customary eccentric spirit, though impressive as he plays two roles in the film (conflict-ridden twin screenwriters), is not quite as powerful as Daniel Day Lewis (Gangs) or Jack Nicholson (Schmidt). Both of these actors undoubtedly carry their works, but Academy-favorite Nicholson is an almost sure lock on the award, and will win it. He plays a 66-year old man coming to terms with the reality of his own aging and of his own family problems, all the while trying to figure out the meaning of his life. The commanding performance is at times moving, at times amusing, but is at all times masterful. Should Win: Nicholson is not going to win just because he is truly loved by the Academy voters; he will win because he puts every aspect of himself into the role, much like in One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest and As Good As it Gets, for which he also won. Best Actress Gonna Win: Renee Zellweger and Nicole Kidman find themselves competing for the second consecutive year, but neither name will be announced on Oscar night They each happened to be part of impressive ensemble casts, making it difficult for them to stand out. Meanwhile, the real race will be between Diane Lane (Unfaithful) and Julianne Moore (Far From Heaven), with Moore barely winning it. She plays a housewife in the 1950s whose seemingly perfect life spins wildly out of control, portraying the character with precision and the appropriate amount of passion for each situation. Should win: Julianne Moore stands out. Best Director Gonna Win: Martin Scorcese, making it the first time in four nominations. Peter Jackson and Rob Marshall directed films whose grandeur was displayed with special effects and stunning choreography. The precise and obsessive nature of Scorcese, combined with an acute sense of style and foresight, makes the war-ridden Gangs of New York refined. Should Win: Roman Polanski should win for the way he blends his direction with his main character’s point of view, and for the manner in which he allows us to begin to understand the terrors of the Holocaust, much like Benigni and Spielberg did in their famous films on the same topic. Best Supporting People Gonna Win: For the men, Chris Cooper will win the honor, as he is outstanding and charismatic playing fanatic John Laroche in the unconventional yet compelling Adaptation. For the women, the real race is between Meryl Streep and Kathy Bates. Though Streep has always been an Academy favorite, Kathy Bates’ role in About Schmidt was beyond impressive. Should Win: Christopher Walken as the poignant and conflicted father of conman Frank Abignale, Jr. in Catch Me If You Can and Kathy Bates for About Schmidt. — AK Best Picture Gonna Win- Chicago. It used to be that the light entertainment always lost out to the ‘serious message movie.’ For the past five years however, the opposite has been the case and no other movie has built up the buzz and the unanimous raves of the Kander & Ebb creation. The Hours had all the markings of Oscar bait, but tepid reviews have sucked all the momentum out of it. Gangs of New York is too bloody, too long and has been garnering mixed reviews (you either loved it or wanted the three hours of your life back). The Pianist is directed by Roman Polanksi. The Academy will never give an award to Polanski. Should Win: How, exactly, do you discuss the unspeakable? The Holocaust film has become a minor genre over the last 10 years. There’s almost a liturgy to the proceedings now: invasion, restrictions, the star, the ghetto, the atrocities, the train, the camp, the liberation. And that’s a lie. What Polanski knows is that every tale of survival is essentially a falsehood because for most people there was no salvation. So he made The Pianist, where there’s a scene when the main character is asked what he will do after the war. “Play the piano for polish radio,” he says. It’s black humor, to be sure, but no less absurd an answer than saying, ‘get married, go to America, believe in humanity, live with myself’ would have been. What, exactly could he have said that would not have been ridiculous? Polanski knows there’s no answer, which is why this is the best film of the year. Best Director Gonna Win: Martin Scorcese. This man should probably own about 4 of the little gold guys. He doesn’t have any. He’s getting old. Gangs had its problems to be sure, but it was the gutsy, great filmmaking of which Scorcese is the patron saint. Both he, and his closest competitor, Rob Marshall, are the kind of directors who legitimate auteur theory. They had the vision –literally. They saw how the idea could look, could work, on screen and made it happen. Almovar was included as a nod to his talent, overlooked by his own country, Polanski will never win, and Daldry doesn’t deserve to. Should Win: Actually, I can’t call this one. I think Scorcese was brilliant in everything he shot, I just wish he’d shot a bit less of it. Marshall was given the Herculean task of translating a musical to the screen and made a smoky, cheerfully cynical sing a long which pretty much rocked. Polanski was Polanski. Any of these guys get it, and justice is done. Best Actor Gonna Win: Jack Nicholson. Day-Lewis may yet pull off a groundswell, or he and Jack will split the vote enough for Adrien Brody to slip through. But Nicholson gave the kind of vulnerable performance people like to award. Also, if he wins, we get to see him raise those eyebrows. Should Win: Daniel Day-Lewis managed, with loud checkered pants, ur- NewYorkese and a killer’s slink, to single handedly keep an immense epic afloat. His Bill was mesmerizing. You couldn’t look away, not even when you wanted to, which, after all, was the point. Best Actress Gonna Win: This is the most fractured race, but Nicole Kidman dyed her hair, put on a fake nose, kissed a girl and offed herself. She was also pretty great while doing all of the above. That should be enough. Not enough people have seen Moore’s remarkable turn, Zellweger was the weakest link in her film, and Hayek and Lane haven’t even been mentioned in the same breath with the first three . Should Win: Jul
ianne Moore. Far From Heaven. Moore gave a performance at once bravura and naturalistic, taking her character and ripping off the lacquered finish to reveal a real person. Best Supporting People Gonna Win: Julianne Moore and Chris Cooper. Moore gets the consolation prize. Playing the embodiment of a life affirming force to a buttoned up member of the opposite sex is always good for a nomination. Do it as well as Cooper, and it’s good for a win. Chicago’s supporting cast (the best part of the movie) has been overshadowed by the push for Zellweger, and Bates’s skin has been mentioned more often than her performance. Meryl Streep is now in the unenviable position of being so good as to be taken for granted. Newman’s turn was riveting, it wasn’t the type of self-reflexive one the Academy awards older performers for. Ed Harris overacted his scenes and Reily didn’t have enough of his own. Then again, this category saw last year’s biggest upset. Should Win: Catherine Zeta Jones was the embodiment of the spirit of Chicago — sass and talent and viciousness all wrapped up in the kelig light allure of showbiz. Christopher Walken’s two-bit hustler of a father was alternately pathetic and charming. Just like a good con should be. — ES Archived article by Erica Stein
Editors' Note

By wpengine March 13, 2003

It hit 40 degrees yesterday. There’s a Dragon on the Arts Quad. People are about to board planes, taking them to places warm or foreign (unless you’re taking the bus back to Jersey. But that’s another story). All of this can only mean one thing: Spring is coming! This makes us very happy. How happy, you ask? We reviewed a children’s movie. That’s right. Turn to page 5 and you’ll find that we made Sue Karp suffer through The Jungle Book 2. How were we able to do this? What nefarious means did we employ to force our writer to sit through this drek? The answer is simple: we’re evil overlords, well maybe only one of us, the other is a caring and considerate … evil overlord! No, really. We’ve got overly complicated plans to take over the world focused on ‘lasers’ and everything. We use Disney films as torture because we can’t afford to rent a dungeon. And now a message from a newsman with no (public) voice, Managing Editor Mr. Marcus “Aurielias” Zawel: Yo, what’s up? I was bitching in the Sun offices last night about never having my very own “special space” to write cute little notes to my readers. So, here it is. And, damn it, I’m just too choked up for words. The only thing I keep thinking about is hurling large snowballs and watermelons at the Dragon (and architecture students) today. It’s going to be so much fun. And then, there are those “Dragon Patrol” guys who wear all that armor and riot gear. It’s so funny when you nail them. Oh, I’m not condoning hurting the architects. It’s just part of the tradition. And, I’m leaving for Jamaica on Saturday. Archived article by Erica Stein