“As for Josh,he’s got great power potential. I spent ten years in Wareham in the Cape Cod League, and I’ve never seen any player take a ball over the center field fence. When Klim was a junior, I saw him—with a wooden bat—drive a ball over the centerfield fence there. I just said, ‘Whoa!’ That doesn’t come along too often.”
How did both of these sensational stars end up at Harvard? For Farkes, it was a dream come true.
“I always wanted to go to Harvard, growing up,” Farkes says. “When Coach Walsh called, I told him it was a dream of mine. Baseball has always been the number one thing in my life—family and baseball. I have three younger brothers, and we’re all close, so I didn’t want to go too far away. Harvard was perfect.”
Klimkiewicz had other plans. After his MVP junior season, Klimkiewicz was approached by professional scouts interested in drafting him directly out of high school. But after he tore his ACL, professional interest died down.
“Some of the scouts and the big Division I schools weren’t as sure about me after the knee injury, but Coach Walsh told me he had seen the injury before and actually even recommended a rehab guy for me to work with,” Klimkiewicz says. “Sometimes you dream about being down south, playing baseball all year in the warm weather, but you don’t turn down Harvard, especially when you have just as good a chance of being drafted playing here as you do there.”
Klimkiewicz has not given up on his dream to play professional baseball.
“I can’t picture a better life than playing in the Majors,” he says. “That’s still my dream. I’ll get my chance [at being drafted] in a couple years, so we’ll see what happens then. Hopefully, I’ll become a better player than what I would have been coming out of high school.”
In the meantime, these two freshmen should at least become famous among Harvard baseball fans. Will there be competition for that spotlight between two players seemingly linked by a higher power? Only the friendly kind.
“Josh and I use competition to push each other,” Farkes says. “We really just want to see the other one do better. We’ve been friends for a long time, going through the process together and having similar conversations about ending up where we are today.”
Make no mistake about it—these two high school teammates are for real. In Harvard’s 10-9 loss to perennial powerhouse, No. 13 Miami, Farkes went 4-for-6 with three runs scored. Klimkiewicz added three RBI, singling and doubling in four at-bats.
Coach Walsh is not the only one who recognizes the talent of the “BB&N connection.” Senior catcher Brian Lentz got a good look at Farkes this past summer when the two played in the Boston Intercity League.
“In just a few games here already, he’s established himself as a great defensive middle infielder,” Lentz said. “And he hits the crap out of the ball all the time.”
Klimkiewicz had the opportunity to face Harvard’s most recent MLB draft pick, Ben Crockett ’02, in a charity game in the summer of 2001.
“He throws hard,” Klimkiewicz chuckles. But did Klimkiewicz get a hit? “A double,” he says. “But [Crockett] said he grooved it in there for me.”
A high school junior doubling off Harvard’s best pitcher in recent history? Unusual, to say the least. But Klimkiewicz and Farkes are an unusual duo. High school teammates, who once played ball five minutes from O’Donnell Field, will now try to lead the Crimson to an Ivy League Championship in their freshmen seasons.
—Staff writer Alex M. Sherman can be reached at sherman@fas.harvard.edu.