“All I did all day was sneak out and go watch baseball,” Smith says. “I’d follow games all day long on my computer.”

After completing his internship and graduating from Yale the following spring, Smith briefly tried his hand at an Internet start-up in Connecticut, but realized that any attempt to escape baseball would be futile.

In the winter of 2000, he went to spring training in Florida, slept in his car for two weeks, and was able to make the contacts that would eventually help him get his chance in baseball.

When reminded that he could be living a slightly different lifestyle had he chosen to remain in Connecticut, Smith chuckles.

“I know all about that. My college roommate works at Google.”

After pausing for a second he adds, “I don’t regret for a second that I didn’t do that.”

Now Smith and Noffsinger, both still in the first few chapters of their baseball odysseys, hope to follow in the footsteps of DePodesta, Epstein, and Shapiro as Ivy League graduates running a team.

Hill, meanwhile, worked his way into baseball operations after playing for three years in the minor leagues. He now stands just a step away from joining DePodesta as Harvard alums as general managers.

“The toughest part is getting the opportunity,” says Hill of his experiences in baseball. “Then you have to make the most of it.”

* * *

It hasn’t gotten to the point yet where representatives from the Red Sox are joining recruiters from J.P Morgan at career fairs, and it is similarly unlikely that the ongoing curricular review will create a concentration of “professional baseball studies.”

But for those consumed by the game—those of us who cringe at the thought of baseball drifting away—the door to a new reality is now open.

—Staff writer David H. Stearns can be reached at stearns@fas.harvard.edu.