Campaign residen the P -litics - Princeton University

Sports
PHOTOS: BEVERLY SCHAEFER
Baseball changes it up with
alineupthatshowsversatility
Many college baseball coaches
train
their players to play a single position
— but not Princeton head coach Scott
Bradley. His lineup
rarely looks the same
two days in a row.
Two of the Tigers’
starting pitchers,
Matt Bowman ’13
and Mike Ford ’14,
play the infield
when they are not
on the mound. The
team’s top hitter in
nonconference play,
Baseball head coach
Scott Bradley
Alec Keller ’14, splits his time almost
evenly between second base and the
outfield. Sam Mulroy ’12, one of the
league’s best sluggers, plays the outfield
or third base when he takes a break
from catching.
The team’s unconventional strategy
helped turn its fortunes around last season.
After completing the 2010 season
with a 12–30 record — and a dead-last
finish in the Ivy League — the team
defied expectations in 2011 with a 15–5
Ivy record and the conference title. This
year, Princeton was
10–6 in the Ivy
League as of April 23
— and 17–17 overall
— but trailed Cornell
in the race for
the division title.
“We had a couple
of years where we
were a more lumbering
team, but now
we love versatility,”
Bradley said. “We have players who are
capable of playing in the middle of the
diamond and the outfield.”
The flexibility of Princeton’s roster is
crucial in Ivy League play. To minimize
time spent away from campus, the 20game
conference schedule is compressed
into five weeks, featuring back-to-back
doubleheaders every Saturday and Sunday.
With players equipped to play dif-
Much of the Tigers’ success this season comes from its versatile
roster. Players such as Matt Bowman ’13 (at center facing camera,
greeting Jonathan York ’14) play more than one position.
ferent positions, Bradley keeps his players
fresh — and has more options
when he needs to relieve players —
through those grueling weekends.
Bradley also has a wide variety of
strategies to choose from, both before
and during games. After Princeton won
the first game of the 2011 Ivy League
Championship Series — a time when
many coaches would stick with what
was working — Bradley inserted three
new starters into the lineup and moved
three others to different positions for
the second game.
Another strength is the team’s pitching
rotation. As of April 23, its pitchers
were fifth in the league in the crucial
measure of average earned runs given
up per nine innings pitched. Ford and
Bowman each threw a shutout this
year, and Bowman was named the Ivy
League player with the best chance to
play professionally by Baseball America.
With players like Bowman and
Ford — who can turn in standout performances
in two positions — the team
has shown that flexibility pays off. π
By Kevin Whitaker ’13
READ MORE: The latest sports updates,
every Monday @ paw.princeton.edu
paw.princeton.edu • May 16, 2012 Princeton Alumni Weekly
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