Holy cow! Whitman has a direct link to baseball's legendary Curse of the Bambino?

Those were the thoughts spinning through the head of die-hard baseball fan Eric Odegard, '99, as he sat in a Pacific Northwest History class in the spring of 1997. Then a Whitman sophomore, Odegard was somewhat stunned when professor Tom Edwards made a passing reference to 'No! No! Nanette,' the 1920s musical. As Edwards remarked, his wife of many years was named after the musical, which was written in part by Otto Harbach, a one-time Whitman professor who left campus in 1901 and eventually achieved considerable fame as one of the top lyricists and playwrights of his time.

For a baseball fan like Odegard, Whitman's connection to 'No! No! Nanette' was stunning because it meant that Whitman was also connected to the Curse of the Bambino.

According to legend, it was in 1920 that Boston Red Sox owner and Broadway producer Harry Frazee, in need of money to stage "No! No! Nanette," sold a young Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees. The Babe, having already helped the Red Sox capture World Series titles in 1915, 1916, and 1918, soon emerged as the greatest ballplayer of all time, sparking the Yankees to their first four World Series titles. Larger than life and known as the Sultan of Swat and the Bambino, Ruth launched the Yankees down a historical road that now includes 38 American League pennants and 26 World Series titles. Alas, Whitman's claim to fame in this matter may be fleeting at best. Many baseball historians have convincingly refuted the Curse of the Bambino legend, citing evidence that Harry Frazee had more than enough liquid assets to fund 'No! No! Nanette' without the sale of the Babe.

Before writing 'No! No! Nanette,' a young Otto Abels Harbach made quite an impression at Whitman. In 1901, when Whitman president Stephen Penrose reluctantly accepted Harbach's resignation, he praised the young professor for his "very rare power of teaching."

Harbach, who had graduated from Knox College in Illinois in 1895, taught expression, oratory, elocution, rhetoric, literary criticism and English literature at Whitman. At noted by Tom Edwards in his book, "The Triumph of Tradition - The Emergence of Whitman College, 1859-1924," Harbach helped many students "overcome nervousness and prepare for required orations." At the same time, Edwards writes, Harbach "impressed Walla Wallans with his public readings."

Harbach, a native of Salt Lake City, left Whitman in 1901 to pursue a Ph.D. at New York's Columbia University. Those plans eventually fell by the wayside, and Harbach worked as a newspaper reporter and for advertising agencies until his playwriting career blossomed. From 1907 through 1936, he wrote some 40 musicals, including 'No! No! Nanette,' 'Rose Marie' and 'Desert Song.' He also wrote seven plays without music, including the popular farce, 'Up in Mabel's Room.'

Among the 1,000 song lyrics Harbach wrote, his personal favorite was 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,' which is remembered as perhaps his most timeless solo work. Other very popular Harbach songs included 'Cuddle Up a Little Closer,' 'Who,' and 'Indian Love Call.'

Harbach collaborated with the best songwriters of his time, including George Gershwin and Oscar Hammerstein II. In 1920, in fact, Harbach took a young Hammerstein under his wing (Hammerstein would later do the same for Stephen Sondheim), and together they wrote several operettas.

A charter member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, and a past president, Harbach was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970. He died in January 1963 at age 89.