When Ed Harvey returned to his Mystic, Conn., home on the night of Friday, April 23, he immediately fired up his computer and navigated to the web page of the University of North Carolina's baseball team.
His son Matt was pitching that night against Clemson, and Mr. Harvey wanted to listen to the game's online broadcast. As he listened, he didn't know what to think.
In throwing a complete game to beat Clemson, 5-3, Matt accumulated strikeouts and pitches at rapid rates, and Ed grew conflicted.
He was proud that his son had pitched so well—but concerned that his son had pitched so much.
"It goes both ways," Ed Harvey said in an interview Tuesday. "To pitch at that level and have the stamina to throw the entire game is pretty amazing. But as a parent of a pitcher, you always worry anytime he throws the ball that there could be an injury."
That 157-pitch, 15-strikeout performance was the standout moment from Matt Harvey's college career, which ended Monday night when the Mets made him the seventh overall selection in Major League Baseball's amateur draft.
June 9, 2010, 6:59 am
