John Tepper Marlin
Robert Trentlyon is a member of the Class of 1950 at Yale. He called to invite me to join him at the Harvard-Yale game this year, which took place on Saturday. For many years, Bob has gone to The Game with two friends, his college roommate and Ambassador
Walter Carrington, Harvard ’52, whom he met when both were involved in Students
for Democratic Action. One year neither of Bob’s colleagues could make it,
so I joined Bob in lieu of the other two. Harvard came from behind and won. Bob
consoled himself at the time, by muttering: “Well, at least Walter isn’t here
to gloat over me.” |
| Bob Trentlyon, Yale '50 |
I met Walter on Bob’s 80th birthday. This year the three of us went to New Haven on Saturday, November 19. Bob is a former NYC newspaper publisher (Chelsea-Clinton News etc.) and a prominent civic leader, his POV distinct from that of his classmate, the late Bill Buckley Yale ’50. Bob told me that Yale calls the Class of 1950 its “greatest class”, swelled by GIs to twice the pre-war size of 800. We took the 7:55 am New Haven RR train from Grand Central (see photo). It was so crowded with young fans that many had to stand.
In New Haven, we met up with Walter, who came
down from Boston. He served Presidents Carter and Clinton as Ambassador to
Senegal and Nigeria and before that headed up the Peace Corps in Africa during
the Kennedy-Johnson era. We took the Yale Club bus to the stadium for $15,
round trip. We purchased general admission tickets for $5 each but then decided
we wanted to sit closer to the 50-yard line so we purchased reserved seats at
Portal 30 for another $30 each. Walter was delighted to find his seat number
matched his birthday. It was our lucky day. We sat right by the 50-yard line.
Since the three of us purchased six
tickets, the attendance figure put out by Yale is overstated by at least three,
making it 55,134. This number amounts to 90 percent of the
61,446 capacity that the Bowl was left with after alterations in 2006. But the Yale Bowl was never 90 percent filled. Many people,
especially on the Harvard side, must have bought tickets and didn’t come. And after
the first half I regret to say a large number of Blue supporters threaded their
way out well before the end of the game; for this game, the Sitzfleisch award goes to the Harvard
fans.
 |
| L-R: Walter Carrington H'52, Robert Trentlyon Y'50, John Tepper Marlin H'62 Update January 2013 - Sadly, Bob Trentlyon tells me he was at a memorial service for Ambassador Carrington - at Tony & Lucille's (see below) in the second week of January. |
We sat on the Harvard side, where
the sun shines after the first quarter. Our caps shaded our eyes (see
photo). The sun meant we shivered less than the Yalies on the
other side of the Bowl. It was windy, especially in the first quarter, and several missed forward passes were probably blown off course. The lateral passes had a higher completion rate but gained less yardage than a forward pass would have (duh!).
One
reason some Harvard fans didn’t show is surely that Harvard was undefeated
going into the game and was already the Ivy champion after beating Penn the
week before. But the Harvard team reportedly had decided not to accept their Ivy
championship rings if they failed to defeat Yale. Based on this fact,
and the formidable team statistics at the front of the game program, I ventured
to suggest to my senior companions that the score would be Harvard 48 to Yale
18. Neither would wager.
The game began with a fine Yale touchdown.
It was a sight to see the Yale side so excited. After the conversion and a 7-0
lead, the Yalies leaped up and waved blue hats and blue scarves until kingdom
come. The idea surfaced… they could win this! In the excitement I confess I
temporarily forgot my lopsided forecast. After all, no money was riding on the
outcome. Ambassador Carrington thoughtfully also failed to remember what my
forecast was. Bob, in contrast, reminded me I was the “baby” (his word) of the
group, and for all he could tell, I was drinking Milk of Amnesia.
But Harvard’s Quarterback Collier Winters quickly tied up the first
quarter. The stadium paused for a moment
of silence out of respect for a woman who was killed before the game by a U-Haul
carrying beer kegs, with two others injured. (The NY Times reported
that the Yale undergraduate driver was sober and that the problem seems to have
been a mechanical failure.)
Harvard’s second touchdown was at the beginning
of the second quarter, as Winters threw a successful 20-yard pass to Wide
Receiver Alex
Sarkisian in the end zone. The next two scores featured kicker David Mothander,
who faked a field goal and ran over the goal line without a single Blue hand
being laid on him and then, before the end of the first half, kicked a real
field goal.
 |
| From the game program I counted 138 names on the Harvard squad, 128 on the Yale squad. So, on average, 8.3 percent of the two squads are on the field at any one time. I couldn't find a roster of the two bands; my impression is that they have shrunk from the numbers in the 1950s and 1960s. If my impression is correct, I wonder what the reason is. |
By the middle of the second quarter when
Harvard was well ahead, I re-remembered my forecast. The Harvard defense held
up during the rest of the game, blocking a Yale field goal kick, forcing a
fumble and intercepting
three times. At the third down 18 times, Yale was able to grind out the yardage
for a first down only four times, which is a success rate of just 22.2
percent.
 |
| As the shadows lengthened, and Winters hammered away, the sons and daughters of Eli streamed out of the stadium. |
The Yale announcer kept up his spirits by noting
the achievements of many of the other 35 varsity sports the university competes in, and noting the
scores of games in the world beyond New Haven. He also made
the point that Yale was ahead over the full 128-game series, with 65 games won
to Harvard’s 53 (soon to be 54) and the rest tied. But Yale has been lagging in recent
years. Since 1956, when the Ivy League was formalized, Harvard has won 31 to
24, with only one game tied - the one in 1968 that is formally listed as a 29-29 tie but is
correctly described (I was there) in Cambridge as a Harvard win. The 21st century has
seen ten wins for Harvard, one for Yale. At what point does Harvard start to look like a
bully?
After a scoreless third quarter, what sped the sons and daughters of Eli on an early exit from the Bowl was the Bang-Bang Winters Silver Hammer coming down on their heads for three touchdowns in a row. The most exciting moments were a 60-yard pass to Kyle Jusczcyk and a long runback after an interception by Harvard captain Alex Gedeon.
 |
| Ivy Champs '99. This was the last time Yale won against Harvard at home. Bob hypothesized this was 1899. |
According to Harvard Magazine's report of the game, the final score equaled (was identical to!) the
best previous Harvard win, in 1982.
To be fair, Yale Quarterback Patrick Witt did his best. During the season he has broken many Yale
passing records. He completed 24 of 39 attempted passes during the game, an
average of slightly less than 10 yards per pass, with one of them ending with a Yale touchdown. The wind may have contributed to three of his passes ending in Harvard hands. There was a kerfuffle over Witt’s choosing to play with his team instead of
showing up for a Rhodes Scholarship finalist interview. He did the right thing
for his team and can always apply for a Rhodes in 2012.
 |
| Archway entrance to Little Italy, New Haven. |
 |
| Tony & Lucille's, where we ate dinner. |
After
the game, there being no more Mory’s, we went to Little Italy (see photo of archway
at entrance to the neighborhood) and had a really fine meal at Tony & Lucille’s (photo at left).
We had trouble afterwards getting a taxi to the train station but fortunately
got a lift from a Yalie patron of Frank Pepe’s Pizza across the road. Pepe’s is reputed to be the
most ancient pizza vendor in the United States, says Bob, who by this time was
greatly cheered up by a large helping of fettucini, more than he could finish, and some Californian pinot
grigio.
 |
| Tony & Lucille's restaurant has installed an ATM machine. The local bank puts a distance between itself and Wall Street. |
The ATM machine at Tony & Lucille's was installed by Domestic Bank, which self-describes its mission as "We're Main Street - Not Wall Street". A sign of the times. This led to some stories by Bob of his days as a newspaper publisher, including the time when his biggest advertisers, NYC’s savings banks (institutions that would now be called “community banks”) were clobbered by the Savings and Loan crisis. It was a hard time for neighborhood-based periodicals, which relied heavily on these bank ads. He once offered a savings bank some toasters in return for advertising - in those days, you got a toaster for opening an account. PS: It didn’t work. “I have a basement full of toasters,” said the banker.
That story was as close as we came to talking about the
reality of the world of 2011, laid low by excessive risk-taking by American financial
institutions and facing the possibility of another whammy from the
asset-shrinking impact of U.S.-originated derivatives on European banks. It was
a welcome respite. It was, for Walter and me, and maybe even for Bob, a
beautiful day.
