May 25, 1974: Bill Almon, Brown outlast Cornell’s Kirk Brink in Ivy League marathon

Bill Almon became a No. 1 draft pick and a 15-season major-leaguer after college. Kirk Brink became a computer programmer and consultant. Their diverging paths crossed for 3 hours and 40 minutes one day in May 1974, when Brown University shortstop Almon and Cornell University starting pitcher Brink played leading roles in an extra-inning thriller.

In a three-team round-robin tournament hosted by Dartmouth College, Almon’s third-inning triple drove in the game’s first run, and he scored the second shortly afterward on a single. Cornell’s two-run fourth-inning homer was enough to send the game into extras. Brown’s Bruins and Cornell’s Big Red battled all the way to the 15th inning, when Almon’s single off Brink—still on the mound—plated the decisive run in a 3-2 Brown victory.

The game drew scant coverage despite the presence of Almon, one of college baseball’s hottest prospects and the first pick by the San Diego Padres in the following month’s amateur draft. More than 50 years later, it’s an interesting story—not to mention a relic from a different era of pitcher management. (Brown starter Bruce Damiani went 13 innings.1) “I have told family and friends about the game,” Brink said in 2026, “and they cannot believe it took place.”2

The tournament booked for Memorial Day weekend, called the North Country Invitational,3 had no bearing on the Ivy League championship. Harvard University, with a 31-9 season record, had already claimed that honor as well as New England’s regional berth in the College World Series.4

Instead, the tournament gave three middle-of-the-pack teams an opportunity to get extra games in. Almon, a junior at the time, recalled that Brown coach George “Woody” Woodworth had added the tournament to the Bruins’ schedule late in the season, and a few seniors missed the trip because of commencement activities.5 Brown closed the full season with a 14-16-1 record, Cornell posted a 13-19 record under coach Ted Thoren, and Dartmouth went 18-19 under Tony Lupien.6

Brown and Cornell met twice during the regular season; they split a doubleheader in Ithaca, New York, on May 11.7 Brink threw a seven-inning, six-hit shutout in the opener in a 2-0 Cornell win, while Almon went 0-for-2. In the nightcap, Almon went 2-for-4 with two runs scored as Brown won 9-0.8

On the tournament’s first day on Friday, May 24, Cornell steamrolled Brown 16-4 in a game played in Keene, New Hampshire. Two other scheduled games in Keene were rained out.9 (The games in Keene were intended to benefit the city’s American Legion baseball program.10) The second day featured games at Dartmouth’s Red Rolfe Field11 between Brown and Cornell, Brown and Dartmouth, and Cornell and Dartmouth.12

Attendance at the tournament in remote New Hampshire was not recorded,13 but those who turned out got to see an All-American and The Sporting News’ eventual choice as Collegiate Player of the Year. In Brown’s 31 games, Almon hit .362 with 10 homers and 31 RBIs and was closely followed by scouts.14

The Padres chose Rhode Island-native Almon out of high school in the 11th round of the June 1971 amateur draft, but he decided to develop as a college player and pursue an education close to home.15 Because the Padres previously had drafted Almon, he had to sign a consent form in 1974 allowing them to pick him again. A half-century later, one of Almon’s main memories of the Dartmouth tournament was that Bob Fontaine Sr., the Padres’ vice president of scouting, traveled all the way to New Hampshire to get Almon to sign the release.16

One other player in Brown’s starting lineup attracted professional attention. Catcher Rich Hand17 had been chosen by the St. Louis Cardinals in the seventh round of the June 1973 amateur draft out of high school and was selected again by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the fifth round of the secondary phase of the January 1976 draft. Hand played a single season at Class A in 1977, hitting .188 in 30 games.

The 1974 Cornell team boasted two future draft picks. Ken Veenema, starting third baseman against Brown, was an 11th-round pick of the Chicago Cubs in June 1977; he also played one season in the low minors.18 Pitcher Steve Hamrick, who posted a 1.87 career ERA and worked a complete-game win against Brown in Keene,19 was also chosen by the Cubs in the 15th round in June 1974. He pitched six minor-league seasons, reaching Triple A.

And then there was Brink, a senior from Denver, Colorado, making his final collegiate appearance in his third season as a varsity letter-winner.20 Not a power pitcher, he relied on a sinkerball with good control, counting on his teammates to make plays behind him. “Since this was my last game, I think Coach Thoren decided to let me go as long as I could in the game,” Brink recalled. “The only pre-game plan was the same as it was before every game I pitched. Throw strikes and rely on your defense.”21

Brown, playing as the visiting team, reached the scoreboard in the third inning. Center fielder Ed Neal reached base to set the table for Almon’s triple.22 The next hitter, left fielder Ted Schoff, singled in Almon for a 2-0 lead.23

The Big Red answered in the bottom of the fourth. With sophomore shortstop Denis Bilodeau, a New Hampshire native, on base,24 freshman right fielder Dave Johnson homered to tie the game at 2-2.25 Johnson was just beginning a college career that saw him earn three varsity letters26 and rank more than 50 years later among the program’s leaders in triples.27 In the marathon against Brown, Johnson went 4-for-6 and hit for the cycle, though only his homer would factor into the scoring.28

Much of the following 10 innings of action has been lost to history. Neither school’s student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun and Brown Daily Herald, appears to have sent a reporter north, as neither published a game writeup.29 And the closest professional daily paper, the Valley News of Lebanon, New Hampshire, didn’t publish on Sundays or holidays.30 Since Monday, May 27, was Memorial Day, the paper’s next issue didn’t come out until Tuesday; it contained no information about the tournament.31

The most specific description of what happened comes from the Providence Sunday Journal, which reported that Damiani, a former Long Island schoolboy star, set down 16 straight Cornell batters from the seventh through 11th innings.32 Damiani had been a two-way performer for the Bruins’ freshman team that spring, going 3-1 with an 0.86 ERA on the mound and hitting .268 with 13 RBIs as an outfielder.33

Barring a dropped third strike, the Sunday Journal’s summary of events would have been impossible—a pitcher retiring every batter for five innings would face only 15 batters—but the article can be read more broadly to suggest that Damiani was dominant during that stretch of the game. He surrendered nine hits and two walks over 13 innings of work, striking out seven, before giving way to senior reliever Marshall Luther.34

Brink, decades later, recalled that Cornell was able to get a runner to third with none out late in the game—possibly on Johnson’s triple35—but couldn’t score him. It was the only serious Cornell offensive threat he could remember.36 On the mound, the innings ticked by: “To my surprise I felt great during the whole game. I did not feel tired at all and I was able to keep throwing as hard as I had in the first inning. … I don’t remember any discussions on taking me out and I do not remember any visits to the mound by Coach Thoren.”37

By the time the teams reached the 15th inning, they might have been starting the equivalent of a third full game. Line scores show that the day’s other two games were seven-inning affairs, so it seems likely that the opener was intended to go seven as well.38

The fateful top of the 15th can be assembled by combining the box score and Brink’s memories. Leadoff hitter Neal, who had switched from center field to left, reached on either a hit or a walk, and second baseman Mark Gittler sacrificed him to second.39

Almon, the All-American, was next. “When he came up in the 15th with a man on second, I knew I had my work cut out for me,” Brink recalled. Almon, completing a 3-for-6 game, drilled a groundball single up the middle, scoring Neal for a 3-2 Bruins lead.40

Brink wrapped up the inning without further scoring, but Cornell couldn’t solve Luther in the bottom half, and the game ended. Luther earned the win, surrendering three hits in two innings. Hard-luck loser Brink gave up 11 hits and four walks while striking out seven.

The day’s two other games went on as scheduled. The presumably exhausted Bruins lost 1-0 to Dartmouth, as future Yankee and Mariner Jim Beattie scattered three hits and two walks. Brown failed to advance a runner past first base, while Almon went 0-for-3.41 In the day’s final game, another homer by Johnson, this time a three-run shot, gave Cornell a 3-2 win over Dartmouth. Planned games on Sunday were canceled when the rain returned.42

Almon was chosen by the Padres as the No. 1 pick on June 5 and went to the pros, making his big-league debut on September 2.  As of 2026 he remained the major leagues’ only No. 1 draft pick from the Ivy League.43

Brink graduated, returned to Denver, and went on to a 25-year career with Amoco Production Company. Looking back at his long-ago final start, he admitted some frustration—“Those close games are hard to lose”—but emphasized pride: “I was disappointed that we did not come away with a win, but I was happy with the way I had pitched and proud of how our team played.”44

Acknowledgments and Author’s Note

The author thanks Bill Almon and Kirk Brink for answering questions about the game, and also thanks Tim Geer of the Brown University athletic communications office and Peter Lannoo of the Cornell Baseball Association for facilitating the outreach.

This story was fact-checked by Larry DeFilippo and copy-edited by Mike Eisenbath.

Photo credit: Bill Almon, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for general player, team and season data.

Neither Baseball-Reference nor Retrosheet provides box scores of college games, but the Providence (Rhode Island) Sunday Journal published a box score in its edition of May 26, 1974.

Notes

1 Per the box score printed on page B2 of the Providence (Rhode Island) Sunday Journal, May 26, 1974.

2 Author’s email correspondence with Kirk Brink, May 2026.

3 “Johnson Slugs for Red,” Ithaca (New York) Journal, May 27, 1974: 12; “Laxers Lose in NCAA Semis,” Cornell Daily Sun (Ithaca, New York), May 31, 1974: 20, https://cdsun.library.cornell.edu/?a=d&d=CDS19740531-01.2.29.

4 Bill Brubaker, “Can Hurricanes Defeat Harvard’s Puku Shells?” Miami News, May 30, 1974: 1C. Harvard lost its first two games in the College World Series to the University of Miami and the University of Northern Colorado and was eliminated. B-R Bullpen, “1974 College World Series,” accessed May 2026, https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/1974_College_World_Series.

5 Author’s email correspondence with Bill Almon, May 2026.

6 “Brown Baseball Year-by-Year Results,” Brown University athletics website, accessed May 2026, https://brownbears.com/sports/2021/2/2/brown-baseball-year-by-year-results; “Baseball All-Time Records,” Cornell University athletics website, accessed May 2026, https://cornellbigred.com/alltime.aspx?path=baseball&record_type=seasons; 2010 Dartmouth College baseball media guide: 80, https://dartmouthsports.com/documents/2018/5/31/2010_Media_Guide.pdf?id=11207. Some news stories from 1974 give slightly different won-lost records for some of the teams; this article opts for the records provided by each college as of 2026.

7 “Baseball All-Time Records,” Cornell University athletics website.

8 Kenny Van Sickle, “Cornell Splits with Brown,” Ithaca Journal, May 13, 1974: 18.

9 “Cornell Wins Over Brown, 16-4,” Ithaca Journal, May 25, 1974: 15; “Dartmouth Nine Divides, 1-0, 3-2,” New Hampshire Sunday News (Manchester, New Hampshire), May 26, 1974: 52.

10 “Robin Gives Whelan Shots at Green Mark,” (Lebanon, New Hampshire) Valley News, May 24, 1974: 13. Keene is in southwest New Hampshire, while Hanover—where Dartmouth College is located—is in the central part of the state on the Vermont border. According to a Google Maps measurement taken in May 2026, the communities are about 54 miles apart as the crow flies.

11 Rolfe, a New Hampshire native, was a Dartmouth graduate who served later in life as the school’s athletic director. He played parts of 10 seasons with the New York Yankees as a third baseman and shortstop between 1931 and 1942, making four All-Star teams and playing in six World Series, five of which the Yankees won. Dartmouth’s Memorial Field was renamed Red Rolfe Field about a month before Rolfe’s death in July 1969. Cort Vitty, “Red Rolfe,” SABR Biography Project, accessed May 2026, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/red-rolfe/.

12 All three games were played on Friday, May 25; line scores for each were printed in the Boston Sunday Globe, May 26, 1974: 75.

13 Research for this article found game accounts, box scores, or line scores published in four newspapers—the Ithaca Journal, New Hampshire Sunday News, Boston Sunday Globe, and Providence Sunday Journal—and none noted the attendance.

14 Lou Pavlovich, “Almon Heads TSN’s College All-America Squad,” The Sporting News, August 10, 1974: 31.

15 Almon also had a brother attending Brown when he made his choice. “50 Years Later, Almon Reflects on Journey and No. 1 Overall Selection,” Brown University athletics website, accessed May 2026, https://brownbears.com/news/2024/7/14/baseball-50-years-later-almon-reflects-on-journey-and-no-1-overall-selection.

16 Author’s email correspondence with Bill Almon; “50 Years Later, Almon Reflects on Journey and No. 1 Overall Selection.” When contacted in May 2026, Almon regretted that he did not remember the on-field action from the May 1974 Dartmouth tournament, but shared memories of events surrounding the tournament.

17 Hand is identified as Brown’s starting catcher in the line score published in the Boston Sunday Globe on May 26, 1974. He caught the whole game against Cornell, going 0-for-6.

18 As of the 2026 season, Veenema’s .334 career batting average still ranked in Cornell’s all-time top 10. “Batting Average Leaders,” Cornell University baseball website, accessed May 2026, https://cornellbigred.com/sports/2023/5/30/baseball-batting-average.aspx.

19 “Earned Run Average Leaders,” Cornell University baseball website, accessed May 2026, https://cornellbigred.com/sports/2023/5/31/baseball-earned-run-average.aspx. Hamrick is mentioned in the line score for the Cornell-Brown game published in the Boston Sunday Globe on May 26, 1974.

20 “1974 Baseball Roster: Kirk Brink,” Cornell University baseball website, accessed May 2026, https://cornellbigred.com/sports/baseball/roster/kirk-brink/40595; “Baseball All-Time Letterwinners,” Cornell University baseball website, accessed May 2026, https://cornellbigred.com/sports/2023/6/12/baseball-all-time-letterwinners.aspx; author’s email correspondence with Kirk Brink.

21 Author’s email correspondence with Kirk Brink.

22 Game accounts do not specify how Neal, who went 2-for-5 on the day, reached base, and Brink did not remember when contacted in 2026.

23 “Brown Nine Tops Cornell,” Providence Sunday Journal, May 26, 1974: B2. According to Schoff’s online obituary, he had been drafted out of high school by the Detroit Tigers but chose to attend Brown instead. He later became a longtime high school English teacher and baseball coach in the Utica, New York, area, winning a state title in 1982. “Theodore R. Schoff,” Enea Family Funeral Homes website, accessed May 2026, https://www.eneafuneralhomes.com/obituaries/theodore-schoff.

24 “1975 Baseball Roster: Denis Bilodeau,” Cornell University baseball website, accessed May 2026, https://cornellbigred.com/sports/baseball/roster/denis-bilodeau/40613. Game accounts do not specify how Bilodeau, who went 1-for-5, reached base.

25 “Johnson Slugs for Red.”

26 “Baseball All-Time Letterwinners.”

27 “Triples Leaders,” Cornell University baseball website, accessed May 2026, https://cornellbigred.com/sports/2023/5/30/baseball-triples.aspx. Johnson’s eight career triples tied him for 10th in program history as of 2026, while his five triples in 1977 tied him for eighth on the single-season list.

28 “Johnson Slugs for Red”; box score in the Providence Sunday Journal, May 26, 1974.

29 Based on searches conducted in May 2026 of the online archives of the Cornell Daily Sun (https://cdsun.library.cornell.edu/) and the Brown Daily Herald (https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/collections/id_919). An end-of-year sports roundup in the Daily Sun (“Laxers Lose in NCAA Semis,” cited above) briefly mentioned the Big Red’s performance in the tournament. Dartmouth College’s student paper, The Dartmouth, did not maintain online archives from 1974 at the time this article was written, though the paper seems unlikely to have written at length about a game that didn’t feature Dartmouth’s team.

30 The Valley News’ production schedule can be seen in “The Valley News,” May 24, 1974: 4.

31 Based on author’s review of the May 28, 1974, edition of the Valley News via Newspapers.com in May 2026.

32 “Brown Nine Tops Cornell”; Joe Krupinski, “Adelphi Trainer Joins High School Hall of Fame,” Newsday (Melville, New York), July 9, 1973: 65.

33 Dave Philips, “Sophomores Will Dominate Brown’s Baseball Team,” Providence Journal, March 14, 1975: B8. In “Brown Nine Tops Cornell,” the Providence paper reported that Damiani, a freshman in the 1973-74 school year, had been moved up to the varsity because Brown considered the academic year to be finished.

34 Damiani also hit a batter. Luther’s class from “Bear-Lion Twin Bill Rescheduled Today,” Providence Sunday Journal, April 7, 1974: D20.

35 Since neither team made an error, a triple would have been the most direct path to get a runner to third base with none out, and Johnson was the only Cornell batter credited with a triple in the box score. Damiani also threw a wild pitch at an unspecified point in the game, so it’s possible that Cornell got a leadoff runner to second and he took third on the wild pitch. Two Cornell batters were credited with doubles—Johnson and first baseman Wayne Schmidt. (Schmidt, incidentally, was a freshman apparently bumped up to the varsity; his name does not appear on Cornell’s 1974 varsity roster but appears on the 1975 roster.)

36 Author’s email correspondence with Kirk Brink. Brink recalled this turn of events happening in the 10th inning—during the same period when the Providence Sunday Journal reported that Damiani was retiring 16 Cornell hitters in a row. The author of this story assumes the Providence article is more likely to be correct since it was written on the day of the game, but chose to include Brink’s memory on the possibility that it happened before or after Damiani’s hot streak.

37 Author’s email correspondence with Kirk Brink.

38 Line scores published in the May 26, 1974, Boston Sunday Globe, cited above. It’s possible that a decision to shorten the two other games to seven innings was made on the fly after the first game turned into a marathon, but available stories make no mention of such a decision.

39 The pitcher’s spot, by then occupied by Marshall Luther, batted between Neal and Gittler. Luther is listed as going 0-for-1 and Gittler is credited with a sacrifice, so the author’s assumption is that Luther was retired before Gittler sacrificed. Brink could not remember whether Neal reached on a hit or a walk, and none of the available published accounts include this detail.

40 Author’s email correspondence with Kirk Brink.

41 “Brown Nine Tops Cornell.”

42 “Johnson Slugs for Red.”

43 “50 Years Later, Almon Reflects on Journey and No. 1 Overall Selection.” He also served for four seasons in the 1990s as Brown’s head baseball coach.

44 Author’s email correspondence with Kirk Brink.