1921-1940  |  1941-1960  |  1961-1980  |  1981-2000  |  2001-2015

As the Northeastern baseball team prepares for its 95th all-time season this coming spring, take a stroll back through time and join the Huskies as the program reflects on 95 years of history on the baseball diamond. During the week of Jan. 12, "Ninety-five years of Northeastern baseball" will highlight a 20-year period of NU baseball history, beginning Monday with its inaugural season in 1921, and ending Friday with the upcoming 2015 campaign.

BOSTON – At a time when World War II threatened to put professional and collegiate athletics across the country on hold, the Northeastern baseball team managed to survive the time, playing uninterrupted straight through the 1940s. Head coach Herbert Gallagher was determined to carry over the Huskies' winning ways from the late 1930s into the new decade, and kicked off the 1941 season with a 9-0 statement win against Beantown rival Boston College. Northeastern would finish the year with a 12-4 record, extending its streak of consecutive 10-win campaigns to four straight seasons.
 
With a roster filled with power hitters and pitching aces, the Huskies' 1942 squad set out to claim the program's second New England Conference title in three seasons (1940). Team captain Wallace Sullivan (class of 1942, HOF inductee 1990) achieved a .371 batting average during the year, while third baseman Oscar Khederian (class of 1942, HOF inductee 1992) had another successful season at the plate, ending his third and final year at Northeastern as a .360 hitter. Gallagher would ultimately guide the Huskies to a 12-3 record and the New England Conference crown, improving his five-year coaching record to 55-23 (.705).
 
For talented athletes like Khederian and Sullivan, the World War II draft board came between them and an immediate future in baseball. Khederian was forced into boot camp following the 1942 season, but continued to play for the Army Air Corps Team. After the war, Khederian was signed by the Boston Braves in 1946, and would go on to enjoy a nine-year professional career opposite major-league sluggers like Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson. Sullivan also played against major-league caliber competition in the Army League during the war, but returned to Boston to pursue a career in teaching.
 
After a three-year hiatus from coaching, Gallagher returned to Northeastern to lead the Huskies to a 7-5 record in 1946. Gallagher's lineup was comparatively weaker than in his 10-win clubs of the early 1940s, but he was fortunate to have a strong bat in Joseph Lynch (class of 1948, HOF inductee 1987). Lynch's batting average of .362 in 1946 dipped to a mere .347 the following season, as the first baseman and centerfielder elected to forego his final year of eligibility to sign with the Boston Red Sox. Known for his late game heroics, Lynch belted two extra-inning, game-winning hits against Boston College when the two teams met in 1946 and 1947.
 
Although Northeastern lost catcher and major-leaguer George Yankowski (class of 1947, HOF inductee 1974) to graduation at the end of the 1947 season, the Huskies opened their 1948 campaign with a seven-game winning streak, outscoring their opponents by a combined 60-13. Following a pair of 3-2 victories against Boston University and New Hampshire that improved Northeastern's record to 9-1, NU struggled to maintain its winning edge, and dropped its final six games of the year.
 
Offensive talent was funneling back into the Northeastern baseball team by the end of the decade, as the team entered a new era of power hitting. As a clean-up hitter, Frank Rando (class of 1951, HOF inductee 1976) ripped a grand-slam and two bases-clearing doubles in a 11-10 win against Colby during the 1949 season, and went on to lead the Huskies with a .371 batting average. Robert Barry (class of 1951, HOF inductee 1985) lettered three times in baseball at NU, turning into a valuable offensive weapon for the Huskies.
 
In 1952, Gallagher and team captain John Connelly (class of 1953, HOF inductee 1975) guided Northeastern to its first 10-win season since the end of the war (12-6). Connelly took home All-New England honors at the end of the year, and four years later would succeed Gallagher as the Huskies' eighth head coach.
 
Prior to the 1953 season, Northeastern joined Boston University, Boston College, Brandeis, Harvard, MIT, and Tufts as members of the newly formed Greater Boston College Baseball League (GBCBL). During their inaugural season in the conference, the Huskies would finish sixth with a 7-10 (3-5 GBCBL) record, including a 2-1 win on opening day against Boston University. NU cracked the top three for the first time the following year in 1954, finishing third (13-5-1, 4-4-1 GBCBL) behind Boston University and Boston College. Pitching ace Donald Eason (class of 1956, HOF inductee 1991) struck out 16 hitters in a 9-1 victory against American International, and threw a three-hit shutout against the defending league champion Eagles.
 
After 15 years at the helm of the baseball program, Gallagher left the team to become Northeastern's athletic director during the summer of 1955. In his first year as manager, NU alum John Connelly led the Huskies to 14 wins in 1956, four more than Gallagher had registered during his first season in 1938. With talented pitchers like George Dowd (class of 1958, HOF inductee 1983), Connelly's crew won 12 games in 1957, bringing home another third-place finish in the GBCBL. Dowd, who Connelly referred to as "one of the best ballplayers in Northeastern history", won back-to-back Most Valuable Player Awards during his junior and senior seasons.
 
By the end of the decade, the Huskies were annual contenders for the league championship, earning their third top-three finish with a 9-9 (4-4 GBCBL) record in 1960. First baseman and team captain Michael Dvorchak (class of 1960, HOF inductee 1981) hit .314 during the year, and was voted to the conference All-Star team. Pitcher Warren Mayhew (1959-61) led the 1960 Huskies in wins (five), strikeouts (50), ERA (3.16), and innings pitched (68.3), all for the second consecutive year.


1941-1960 STATISTICS

Largest win: 24-4 at Boston University (1945); 23-3 vs. Clark (1955)
Largest defeat: 1-19 vs. Colby (1947)
Most combined runs in a game: 29 (L, 11-18 vs. New Hampshire, 1951; W, 21-8 at Brandeis, 1957)
Record during the 1940s: 75-64-1 (.539)
Record during the 1950s: 97-87-4 (.527)
Highest single-season winning percentage: .800 (12-3, 1942)
Lowest single-season winning percentage: .333 (3-6, 1945; 4-12, 1947)
Longest single-season winning streak: 10 (1942)
Longest overall winning streak: 10 (1942)